House of Commons
Tuesday 25 March 2008
The House met at half-past Two o’clock
Prayers
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Secretary of State was asked—
Iraq
The United Kingdom, with its international partners, remains committed to supporting Iraq’s development into a secure and stable country, able to play its rightful role in the region and within the international community. This is consistent with our proactive approach to foreign policy, centred on the strategic goals that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary outlined to the House on 8 January 2008.
On 23 May 2003, Jerry Bremer, head of the coalition provincial authority, ordered the dissolution of the Iraqi army. A week before that, he had disbanded the Ba’ath party, alienating tens of thousands of Iraqis, including some 40,000 teachers and as many nurses and doctors. Will the Minister now concede that those were two of the biggest schoolboy errors in recent peacekeeping history and explain why Britain supported those decisions?
I do not think that “schoolboy errors” is the right description. I know that the hon. Gentleman understands that tremendous resentment was felt towards the Ba’ath party and the Iraqi army for what they had done over the previous 10 years, including the appalling events in Kurdistan and the massacre of Shi’a s in the south. If he is asking whether I think, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was a mistake to do that, I shall defer to the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) who is, among other things, a military historian, and can give his hon. Friend a more considered view. I think that it is easy to look at things with hindsight and to assume that the facts as we now know them were apparent at the time.
Are we not seeing a post-Iraq foreign policy emerging, exemplified by President Sarkozy’s visit here, his desire to see a reintegration with NATO and to send more troops to Afghanistan, and also by Senator John McCain’s statement on the front page of Le Monde at the weekend that the US must listen to its allies and rebuild relations with Europe? Is not the real lesson to learn that Europe and the US must work together and the US must listen to Europe? Britain has to be a leader in Europe, and the way forward is neither the anti-European populism of the right nor the stupid anti-US rhetoric of the left.
There is very little I disagree with in that.
The Minister will know as well as anyone the amount of disappointment felt by Britain’s allies in the middle east at our failure to exercise more influence over the course of events in Iraq, in particular on the mistakes in American policy. Could the Minister give his assessment of the damage that has been done to the achievement of British foreign policy goals by the damage to our influence with our friends in the region?
I admire the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this issue and I always have done. However, if he is implying that what Britain has done in the middle east is somehow more damaging than, for example, the duplicity that we have witnessed from some of the capitals in the middle east on issues such as Lebanon or support for the rejectionists in Gaza and the west bank, I disagree. The real damage is being done by those who want to see the middle east not as a settled, prosperous area, but under the influence of certain extremist groups and terrorists.
Last month I was in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and I met women’s groups and trade union groups. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is by forging links with such groups seeking social justice that we will achieve our foreign policy goals in Iraq?
Yes, it is important to stress that there are parts of Iraq that have done extremely well over the past year or so. Like my hon. Friend, I visited Irbil recently and saw the encouraging developments there. What is required now is a sense of unity between Irbil, Baghdad and Basra that will enable that country to start to tap its enormous potential, because it could be very prosperous and a key country for the whole middle eastern region.
Does the Minister understand that many of us believe that our involvement in Iraq has done immense damage to Britain’s national and international interests, and that that is one of several disreputable reasons why the present Government will not allow an immediate inquiry into Iraq?
No, I certainly do not agree. I do agree that our involvement in Iraq has generated tremendous controversy, and we have to accept that. It would be silly to deny it. However, on the other hand, I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to consider that Iraq is not now in a position to attack its neighbours, to gas and poison its own people or to commit the sort of atrocities that occurred before Saddam Hussein was removed.
Gaza
We have been working with partners to address the situation in Gaza. I have recently been in contact with the key players, including the UN Secretary-General and EU colleagues as well as leading figures in the region. The EU presidency issued a statement following the European Council last week. We call on all parties to exercise restraint and minimise civilian casualties, and we use our aid resources to mitigate the worst aspects of the situation. However, a lasting solution can come only from a strong political process, to which we are contributing. Rejectionists must not divert us from that path.
Foreign politicians by the planeload arrive in Jerusalem to heap praise upon the Israeli Government, but none goes to the Gaza strip to see how Israel’s sanctions and its siege of the 1.5 million Palestinians have caused economic collapse, starvation, pitiful conditions and hundreds of deaths. Will the Foreign Secretary condemn Israel’s actions at the EU and UN, as a political and moral obligation, and so end the collective international blindness to those outrages and deafness to Gaza’s cries of despair, and the silence as Israel suppresses and destroys with impunity?
I know that my hon. Friend has followed the issue for some time. In respect of actions, we can point to the genuine work that this Government are doing, I think with the support of the whole House, to try to mitigate the worst aspects of the humanitarian situation. Some £30 million was given last year, as part of an €800 million contribution from across the European Union.
In respect of statements, I refer my hon. Friend to what I said on 2 March, which I think was the most recent occasion on which I commented on Israel’s actions in this area. I said:
“Israel’s right to security and self-defence is clear and must be reiterated and supported. But measures taken in response to rockets must be in accordance with international law, minimising the suffering for innocent civilians, and maximising the scope for political negotiations to be restarted.”
I hope that that is a point of unity in the House. However, two weeks ago I met the mayor of Sderot, a town that has been the subject of 7,000 rocket attacks, I think, in the past decade, and I hope that it is also a point of unity that suffering and insecurity on a terrible scale are being suffered in Israel as well. From our point of view, the Palestinian suffering and Israeli insecurity are two sides of the same coin, and they need to be addressed together.
I, too, met the mayor of Sderot. With rocket attacks increasing to more than 250 a month on both Sderot and Ashkelon, and with the Israeli counter-measures in Gaza, may I urge my right hon. Friend to redouble the efforts of the UK Government to get both the Palestinians and the Israelis talking again, particularly President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, to seek the peaceful resolution and two-state solution that I believe we both want to see?
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I would say two things in response. First, the discussions between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, which have continued throughout the past few weeks, when violence has been at a very high level, speak to the commitment of both those leaders to see through the Annapolis peace process that has started—a process fragile in many ways, but none the less better than having no process at all, which has been the problem for the past seven years.
Secondly, it is important to continue to emphasise that the goal of a two-state solution has cross-party support in the United Kingdom, and we certainly want to contribute to it in practical ways. The next stage will be the next meeting of the ad hoc liaison committee, a key group of countries that supports the development of a Palestinian state and a Palestinian economy. It will be meeting in London, under the chairmanship of myself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, on 2 May. It will be an important occasion to take forward practical and political measures.
Since Israeli disengagement in Gaza back in 2005, there have been something like 4,000 rocket attacks emanating from there into Israeli territory. Those rocket attacks are not just perpetrated by Hamas; the al-Aqsa brigade is involved. What specific pressure are the Government bringing to bear on the Palestinian Authority to stop those attacks on Israel?
The hon. Gentleman raises an important matter. Of course, the split that now exists within the Palestinian population, between Gaza and the west bank, is one of the most significant problems. The absence of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza is a significant issue that blocks progress. We are supporting the reopening of the crossings from Gaza into Israel, which would involve the Palestinian Authority, giving it a new bridgehead back into Gaza. I continue to believe that the leadership of President Abbas, who has been elected by all the Palestinian people, offers the best hope of progress. The hon. Gentleman’s wider point deserves wider discussion, because he is right to say that the rocket attacks have not come only from Hamas, although they have come predominantly from Hamas.
Does the Foreign Office, with its long and expert knowledge of the area, regard it as a success that its Secretary of State seems sensationally to have overturned 1,300 years of Islamic antagonisms by driving Sunni Hamas into the arms of Shi’a Hezbollah? Both groups are being armed by Shi’ite Iran, so that the possibility of a two-power settlement without the involvement of all three now looks very remote.
I think that the past 40 years of history are more important than the 1,300 years that the hon. Gentleman referred to. I fear that he is right to say that the prospect of a two-state solution is further away than it has been for many years, but that redoubles the importance of the very fragile peace process that has been started. Iran’s support for terrorism in the region is a significant matter and one that we have raised directly with the Iranian authorities. It obviously causes genuine instability across the region, and we should all be seeking to counteract it.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is hard to see how there can be a durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians while the latter remain divided between Gaza and the west bank, Hamas and Fatah? Will he therefore welcome the discussions over the past five days between Fatah and Hamas to promote national reconciliation? Does he agree that our job is to win both groups over to an effective peace process and not, as Vice-President Cheney appears to have been doing over the weekend, to try to drive Hamas further away from that process?
Our job is to support everyone who is committed to a peaceful resolution on the basis of two states able to live side by side. The unity of the Palestinian people under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas is something that we should all support.
I endorse what the Secretary of State has said, and the Opposition accept that security and the need to tackle the humanitarian catastrophe taking place in the Gaza strip are inextricably linked. What contact are he and his colleagues having with the Egyptian Government? Does he agree that the Egyptian authorities are crucial to ensuring that explosives and materials for making rockets do not get through the tunnels into the Gaza strip, from where they can threaten Israeli cities? Are they not also crucial to efforts to reopen the border crossings, so that legitimate trade can resume in the not-too-distant future, as we both hope?
It is for precisely that reason that I went to Cairo two months ago, and it is also why I spoke to the Egyptian Foreign Minister the Friday before last. Egypt has an absolutely pivotal role to play, both in practical terms in respect of the smuggling to which the hon. Gentleman rightly referred—and which is a long-term and not a short-term problem—and in respect of the crossings. Twenty-two nations supported the Arab peace initiative, which remains a very important contribution to the peace process. It shows that moderate Arab opinion is rallying around reconciliation with Israel, and reflects the Arab world’s determination to take its responsibilities very seriously. That is to be wholly welcomed, and I know that Egypt’s Foreign Minister is determined to continue to play what is an important role for Egypt and other leading nations.
Hamas goes on indiscriminately murdering innocent Israelis, including children and babies, while the Israeli forces continue indiscriminately murdering Palestinians in Gaza, including children and babies. The Israelis continue to break international law by building an illegal wall, expanding illegal settlements and imposing collective punishment on the people of Gaza. When are the Quartet going to do something other than utter platitudes that get no one anywhere?
My right hon. Friend makes an important comment about the role of the Quartet. The economic work that the Quartet is taking forward is important, although it is frustrated by the current insecurity, and I know that discussions are going on about the Quartet’s next meeting in an attempt to forge a more active unity. As he knows, our position is that the settlements are illegal under international law. I am glad to hear him repeat that the indiscriminate terrorism of Hamas is a murderous attack on the peace process, as well as on the individuals who are affected.
India
The United Kingdom enjoys a strong partnership with India based on the shared values of democracy, fundamental freedoms, pluralism, rule of law and respect for human rights. The Prime Minister’s recent visit to New Delhi strengthened that partnership by ensuring that progress was made on a range of bilateral and wider international issues. Both sides will use the outcome of the visit to deepen the relationship further.
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, but does he recall the joint declaration signed in September 2004 by our Government and the Indian Government? In the declaration, it was agreed that both sides would pursue permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council for India. What progress has been made, and what effort has the Minister made to ensure that the Indians succeed in gaining that seat?
The United Kingdom publicly and consistently champions reform of the UN, including the introduction of an enlarged UN Security Council, with a permanent seat for India. The Prime Minister reaffirmed the United Kingdom’s support for India’s candidacy during his speech in Delhi in January. Our mission in New York is trying to break the long-standing deadlock over reform, and we will continue with our efforts to persuade Governments that India should have a permanent seat on the Security Council—alongside Brazil, Japan and Germany, in our view—and that there should be representation from Africa.
The Minister will be aware that India has gone to war with Pakistan over Kashmir three times since independence, and that both India and Pakistan are nuclear states. What discussions has he or other Ministers had about a way forward for Kashmir?
The hon. Gentleman is right: back in 2002, those two nuclear states were facing each other in what was probably the most dangerous confrontation anywhere on Earth. I am sure that he will agree with me that we should be greatly encouraged by the fact that India and Pakistan are dealing with the matter themselves. It will be interesting to see how quickly the new Pakistani Government take up the mantle and ensure that the peace that is thankfully now being experienced in Kashmir becomes permanent.
Burma
We were disappointed by the regime’s refusal to engage with the UN special envoy on Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, during his visit. It shows no willingness to meet the demands of the international community, in particular the need for a genuine and inclusive process of national reconciliation. The regime is determined to press ahead with its flawed road map process, which risks entrenching division and instability in the country.
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments, and I share her disappointment with the outcome of the recent visit by the UN envoy. Does she share my concern about the proposed referendum that the Burmese regime anticipates will take place in May? It is likely that it will wish to retain a large block vote for the military in the new Parliament, and to ban opposition leaders. What dialogue has she had with Burma’s neighbours, including China and India, on what they will do to put pressure on the Burmese regime to ensure that the process is much more democratic than is currently proposed?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the proposals give no cause for optimism at all. There is no inclusive process in the proposals; indeed, the constitution on which the referendum would take place has not been seen. She rightly identifies the important role of China and India. My right hon. and noble Friend Lord Malloch-Brown has done a great deal to work with them. The Prime Minister raised the matters on his visits to China and India, and we will continue to press them to use their influence.
On 19 November 2007, in response to the institutionalised bestiality of the Burmese regime, the Council of the European Union announced new sanctions in respect of the Government of Burma covering gems, metal and timber; 127 days later, why have those sanctions not been fully implemented? When does the Under-Secretary of State estimate that they will be, and do the Government intend to press for a strengthening of the EU common position, including a ban on all investment, when the matter comes up for consideration next month?
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the EU ban on those matters was formalised in January, so sanctions should be in force, and we are monitoring their effect. However, we are not complacent, and we will consider pressing for further sanctions if the regime does not continue to take steps along the lines set out by the United Nations.
Peaceful attempts have been made to demand democratic values in Burma and other locations across the globe. What specific attention have the Government given to efforts to support those peaceful attempts, particularly by the opposition in Burma?
The Government are in touch with a range of countries in the region, particularly neighbouring countries: not just China and India but the ASEAN—Association of South East Asian Nations—countries. ASEAN has made a decision to step back, but individual countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have proposed talking to the Burmese about encouraging peaceful ways forward, and we support those efforts.
A few weeks ago, I met Piero Fassino, the EU’s envoy to Burma, who has been unable to go there since he was appointed, which indicates the military regime’s attitude. What steps can my hon. Friend and her fellow Ministers in the EU take to press for tougher, co-ordinated international action, both within the EU and through their contacts with other international organisations?
My hon. Friend is right that we should seek to get the Burmese regime to co-operate with a number of processes to demonstrate that it is willing to move towards a more democratic situation. We remain engaged in the United Nations through the Secretary-General’s “group of friends”. We are involved, too, through the EU, and as I have said, we continue to lobby and discuss the situation with countries in the region. We want Sergio Pinheiro, the UN human rights envoy, to be able to return and make a proper assessment of the human rights situation in Burma, and that is something to which we have given priority.
Ministers have said on many occasions that the Government would support further action at the UN and through the EU on Burma if the Burmese Government failed to make progress on political reform and reconciliation. It appears to many hon. Members that the Burmese Government do not respond to virtually anything; the only thing to which they seem to respond in a small way is strong international opinion. Given that Mr. Gambari has said that his visit did not yield “any tangible outcome”, will the Government push for Burma to be put on the UN Security Council’s formal agenda, and for meaningful action such as a UN arms embargo to be finally adopted?
The hon. Gentleman raises some important matters. We are concerned about the lack of progress and, indeed, in some respects, matters have gone backwards. We would certainly consider pushing for the issue to be discussed further at the UN, and we would support a UN call for an arms embargo.
Iran (Women’s Rights)
The Government are very concerned about the increasing repression of women’s rights activists in Iran. Reports have reached us that dozens of women have been arrested and sentenced for campaigning peacefully for reform of discriminatory laws in the country. Protection of human rights defenders and freedom of expression is crucial to the promotion of human rights. We reiterate the EU’s recent call for Iran to
“put an end to all acts of harassment against all Iranian human rights defenders”.
I thank the Minister for his reply. In addition to being arbitrarily arrested and detained, women are being ill-treated in prison and denied access to legal redress. It may be very well to support EU action, but what positive action has the Minister taken alongside other EU countries to bring those practices to an end?
I can certainly tell the hon. Lady that the United Kingdom has been in the forefront of efforts to persuade EU member states to take much stronger action against Iran, principally for its general abuse of human rights. It is the country that executes the second highest number of prisoners in the world, after China, and those executions very often take place publicly under barbaric conditions. It is also the country that has brought back all sorts of barbaric punishments, such as stoning to death. I have démarched the Iranian ambassador to the United Kingdom about that, and I know that a number of other European states have done the same. I can assure the hon. Lady that we will keep up that pressure.
I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I wonder what other action we can take to deal with the problem of the abuse of women and also, as he rightly says, Iran’s terrible record with regard to capital punishment. Is it not time that the UN took that up more seriously? We hear about the threat of nuclear proliferation, but Iran’s treatment of its people should also be at the forefront of our mind. What does my hon. Friend intend to do about that?
The Government are publishing their human rights report today, in which, unfortunately, Iran features heavily. My hon. Friend is right. We believe that there ought to be much more concerted action on the part of the United Nations to persuade the Iranian Government that if Iran is to be, as it purports to want to be, a modern democratic state, it could begin quickly and easily to be so by stopping the abuse of human rights and the barbaric punishments that it uses.
I am glad to hear that the Minister and the Government take seriously the appalling treatment of women in Iran. Can he share with the House the Foreign Office’s assessment of what happened last week in parliamentary elections, and whether the so-called conservative consolidation in those elections may even make matters worse?
I think there is a question coming up on that, but I can say that I, for one, was disappointed by the apparent outcome of that election, but we have heard since that there is now quite a strong group in Parliament that refers to itself as pragmatic conservatives. I do not know whether the hon. Lady knows what that means, and whether she would recognise that term. It should be a great cause for concern among all politicians inside Iran that a country that is potentially as great and as wealthy as Iran ought to be is better known for human rights abuses against women and against many other parts of the population than it is for its great history and great potential.
As relations between Iran and the outside world have worsened over its nuclear programme, Iran has also taken less and less notice of rebukes over its extremely poor human rights record. Given that and Iran’s effective suspension of the EU-Iranian human rights dialogue since 2004, what additional action do the Government propose to take to expose Iranian behaviour and to call on it to abolish cruel and degrading punishments such as stoning, flogging and amputations once and for all?
I can assure the hon. Gentleman, who is the Opposition spokesman on this important subject, that whenever and wherever we hear reports of such abuses taking place, we try very hard to ensure that our voice is heard. As hon. Members have said, it will take a lot more concerted action on that, and I would like to see far more effective action by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly to address these matters, which infect the reputation of Iran. We want that country to have a good reputation, not to be known for its abuses of human rights.
Iran-Iraq Relations
It is essential for Iraq’s stability and prosperity that it develops constructive relationships with its neighbours, including Iran. We welcome Iranian efforts to build relations, but some elements in Iran continue to support illegitimate armed groups, undermining democracy and security. That is wholly unacceptable, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have told the Iranian Foreign Minister on a number of occasions. British and coalition troops will continue to support the Iraqi Government in confronting such groups and their sponsors.
Despite President Ahmadinejad’s official visit to Baghdad earlier this month, General Petraeus yesterday publicly accused the Iranians of being responsible for supplying the mortars and rocket shells that landed within the green zone. He also said that Iranian revolutionary guard elements were responsible for training the insurgents who fired those rockets. What action will the Government take against the Iranian authorities to prevent the Iranians from stoking the insurgency in Iraq?
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have been worried for a long time about the supply of Iranian weapons, especially those of Hezbollah design—roadside bombs with special detonation devices that bear the hallmark of Hezbollah and seem to have come through elements of the Iranian security forces.
We have called on Tehran to turn its rhetoric about wanting a good relationship with its neighbour Iraq into a reality. We urge it now to try to do just that, to make sure that the relationship is based not on fear and terror, but on the understanding that if Iran is to have a safe and secure future, Iraq must be safe and secure as well.
Tibet
The whole House will be very concerned about the situation in Tibet. An uneasy calm has returned to Lhasa, although unrest has spread to surrounding regions. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke to Premier Wen on 19 March, my right hon. Friend urged him to respect the human rights of detainees, avoid the use of excessive force, respect freedom of expression and religion in Tibet, and start a political dialogue with the Dalai Lama. I repeated those points to the Chinese Foreign Minister when I spoke to him on Friday. We also call on the protesters to desist from further violence.
The whole House will be with the Foreign Secretary in hoping that protesters desist from further violence. However, the fact is that most Free Tibet protesters and the Buddhists that go with them are peaceful protesters. The awfulness has been that they have been repressed in the most violent way by the Chinese and other interests.
Will the Foreign Secretary give us his assurance that as the Olympic torch wends its way across Europe and through the UK, the British authorities will allow peaceful protest by the Free Tibet people and that he will use his best initiatives with other countries across the world to ensure that those people are allowed to continue their perfectly legitimate and free protests?
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. He is absolutely right that our traditions of free speech and free demonstration must be upheld in respect of all matters—including the passage of the Olympic torch, which should pass with full security but also with full respect for our democratic freedoms.
The hon. Gentleman hinted at a further important point. In the last 50 years, the Dalai Lama has made it his business not to argue for independence for Tibet, but to voice calls for moderation and dialogue. The danger is that people give up on that course and turn to more violent courses of action; the hon. Gentleman may have been hinting at that point in the early part of his question. I certainly echo the conclusion of that point, which is that the need for political dialogue has never been greater.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware that many Tibetans in exile in northern India are expressing impatience with the Dalai Lama’s commitment to peaceful protest and to autonomy rather than independence. Does my right hon. Friend not think that that makes it even more important that the Government should put all the support that they can behind the Dalai Lama and behind the work towards a peaceful resolution?
My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is precisely why the Prime Minister is going to meet the Dalai Lama, who is a respected religious figure. My hon. Friend is right to point to the fact that without dialogue as the basis for expressing frustration, people turn in other directions. I share the sense of urgency that she brings to the issue.
Given that the Chinese Government depend on trade with the EU, what European initiative is likely to take place to try to ensure that the Chinese understand that dealing with the Dalai Lama is crucial not only to their domestic problems in Tibet but to their global position and their increasing respectability in the world before the Olympics?
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In respect of both the Olympics and trade, there is an important decision for the world to take: whether it gains, and China gains, from engagement or from isolation. We have made our position clear in respect of the Olympics: engagement is better—and ditto in respect of trade. However, I can assure him that in that context of a commitment to engage in China on an open basis—with maximum openness, actually—the 27 European Foreign Ministers who meet this weekend will discuss how we can ensure that the maximum political voice is given to the need for the sort of dialogue that he believes in.
Will my right hon. Friend enter into discussions with the Chinese to ensure that non-violent protest may take place, that people who are going to take part in the Olympics will not have to sign any gagging orders, and that we allow freedom of speech in a non-violent way?
To the extent that that question is related to the story about British athletes, there is certainly no question of gagging orders. My hon. Friend also raises a wider point, which is that in our own history and reading of the Chinese situation, giving people expression for human rights and guaranteeing human rights, whether in the courts of law or in respect of freedom of speech, is the way to ensure the stability of a society rather than to promote its instability. That is the basis of our human rights dialogue with the Chinese authorities, which went to Tibet earlier this year, and it is the basis of the human rights cases that I raised with China’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister when I was there last month.
When issuing instructions on the policing for the progress of the Olympic torch in Britain, will the Government take the view that the police should allow placards to appear in any picture of the torch passing—the protesters’ view—or will they take the Chinese view that the event should be policed in such a way that no protest placards and posters will be on display?
If the right hon. Gentleman believes that we control the pictures that people take, he is perhaps giving greater credence than is deserved to stories about the Government’s prowess in controlling the media. Obviously, the operational matters will be taken forward by the policing authorities. I am sure that the spirit of the whole House is summed up in the idea that we want to ensure not only security for the torch and a proper celebration of the Olympic spirit, but that our own history and our own commitments to democratic rights and freedom of protest are properly respected.
In today’s London Times, it is reported that the Foreign Secretary was assured by the Chinese Foreign Minister that any Chinese protesting against the Beijing Olympics would be given a cup of tea by the police; we then read that Yang Chunlin was given five years in jail for it. Tibetan protesters have been getting shot. What credence does the Foreign Secretary give to assurances from the Chinese Foreign Minister or Government about their good intentions?
The Chinese Foreign Minister did not assure me about a cup of tea or promise me a cup of tea—he answered a question from, I think, a correspondent from The Times at a press conference that the Minister and I held in Beijing, and I think that his answer was in respect of a slightly different point. The credence that we have to give is that actions are what count; the rights of individuals in China and the actions of the Chinese Government are absolutely key to the responsibilities of great nations like the Chinese. It is important that we continue to set out our own view without fear or favour.
Darfur
Due to fragmentation among rebel movements and intensified fighting between the Government of Sudan and rebel groups, there has been no recent progress in the political process. The UK set out, at a meeting convened in Geneva on 18 March by the United Nations and African Union envoys, proposals for a cessation of hostilities and actions to revitalise the political process, including the urgent appointment of a single chief mediator and deeper engagement with civil society.
I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. Is she aware that China sold Sudan $55 million-worth of small arms between 2003 and 2006 and has provided more than 90 per cent. of Sudan’s small arms since 2004, when a UN arms embargo took effect? Does she agree that China must do a lot more, in Sudan and Tibet, to end violence and support human rights?
This Government want China to use its considerable influence in Khartoum to play a constructive role in Darfur. The Chinese special envoy for Africa visited London last month and discussed with my right hon. Friends key objectives in Sudan, particularly the acceleration of UNAMID—United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur—deployment. I am sure that, like me, the hon. Gentleman wants to see the Chinese use their influence in a positive way.
When I was in Darfur in December, we were told by one of the commanders of the African Union force that three things were needed to enable that force to do its job properly: first, the lifting of the night-time ban on helicopter flying; secondly, the availability of logistical resources; and thirdly, the removal of the obstacles placed by the Sudanese Government in the way of entry into the country for personnel and equipment that the force needs to do its job. Can the Minister tell us what progress has been made on each of those three specific measures?
As I said in my earlier answer, the real problem is the fighting taking place on the ground, which means that none of those matters is moving forward. There has been progress on the provision of helicopters, which we discussed during the last Foreign Office questions, in that Ethiopia has offered four more. In reality, however, until the fighting stops on the ground, further deployments cannot take place and the humanitarian situation will continue, causing us all a great deal of concern.
Topical Questions
EU Foreign Ministers will meet informally in Slovenia on 28 and 29 March to discuss, among other topics, the middle east and Russia. We will also meet the Foreign Ministers of the western Balkans countries to discuss their European perspective, and the Foreign Ministers of the accession countries. The member states have important common interests at stake in all those issues, and the UK’s impact is enhanced by working with our European partners.
Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani on his election as Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Dr. Fahmida Mirza on becoming Speaker, making her the first woman Speaker in the Muslim world? Does my right hon. Friend agree that Pakistan faces many challenges, and that last month’s parliamentary elections show that it is moving towards real democracy? Can he assure the House that the British Government will give their full support in helping to build and strengthen democracy in Pakistan, which is the only guarantor for its, and our, future?
I am delighted to agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. The scenes on election day, and on the subsequent election of the Speaker and Prime Minister, give strength to those of us who argued that democracy was in the best interests of stability in Pakistan. Our responsibility will be to engage fully with the new Pakistani Government to ensure that the Commonwealth monitoring action group, which looks at Pakistan’s role in the Commonwealth, reconvenes soon, and to ensure that our aid programmes fully support the people of Pakistan, who depend not just on elections but on the economic and social progress that many millions of people in Britain, around the world, and in Pakistan itself want to see.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman was here 10 minutes or so ago when we addressed precisely that issue. The need for political dialogue is stark, not least because of the situation on the ground, and not least because of the danger that people will turn away from the political process if they do not see dialogue delivering a way forward. I heard the right hon. and learned Gentleman talk on the radio about having an Asian Nelson Mandela, and he repeated the phrase in the International Herald Tribune yesterday. I am happy to agree with him that dialogue with the Dalai Lama is the right way forward, and it remains the position of the British Government to support that. It is important to capitalise on the Dalai Lama’s commitment to autonomy for Tibet, not independence, and to non-violent action and dialogue as the way forward.
The Foreign Office noted with interest the report to which the hon. Gentleman refers. We take great care on the matter, and we will continue to monitor the specific concerns that he fairly and reasonably raises today.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s interest in Cuba, which I know goes back some time. The UK and the US both want Cuba to be free and democratic, but we disagree about the best way to encourage that. We continue to support the current EU common position, which will next be reviewed, as he said, in June. That is obviously a few months away, and we will consider what happens in Cuba before that. We remain concerned about the lack of human rights, especially for political prisoners, and we want greater movement on that, with the political prisoners freed, before changing the EU common position.
May I return the Foreign Secretary once again to the Iranian nuclear issue? In a written answer to me last week, he said:
“Work…is now under way”—[Official Report, 18 March 2008, Vol. 473, c. 1032W]
—to develop new proposals for incentives for Iran, building on the package presented in June 2006. He will recall that Iran rejected that incentives package out of hand at the time. Does he therefore agree that incentives must be combined with a credible set of tougher sanctions and that, so far, despite his best efforts, which we fully support, we and our European allies have failed to muster that credible threat?
I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the need for a twin-track approach to Iran. It is the Government’s policy that we must ensure that the sanctions are clear and strong, and that incentives for Iranian co-operation are clear. I am sorry that he has dismissed what the European Union is doing. I think that he agrees that Europe has outperformed the requirements of the existing UN sanctions regime. The EU has gone beyond the requirements of the UN position on nuclear and missile technology, dual use items, travel restrictions, the assets freeze and a study ban. It is important—I would have thought that we could agree on this—that we continue to make it clear, by both reiterating the June 2006 offer and pointing to the flexibility that we showed in the May 2007 offer of a suspension for a suspension, that there is a real chance for Iran to rejoin the community of nations on the issue.
We do very much agree about all that. I do not dismiss what has been done in going beyond the UN sanctions. However, the Foreign Secretary will not be surprised if we try to hold the Government to their statements about the subject a few months ago; I am sure that he will not object to that. The Prime Minister said last November that he would seek European sanctions on Iranian oil and gas investment and on its financial sector. The Foreign Secretary said to me a few days later that Britain would push for those sanctions to be agreed before the end of the year. Does he share our disappointment that those sanctions have not been agreed? Is he still confident that those sanctions, which he and the Prime Minister rightly supported, will be agreed at any time in the coming weeks and months?
The right hon. Gentleman knows that the European action was designed to follow the third UN resolution, which has now been agreed; it was agreed later than he and I wanted, but it was none the less passed nearly unanimously, by 14 to zero. It is right for him and me to continue to press all our European partners to ensure that we examine precisely the issues that the Prime Minister and I raised. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will continue to do that. I do not want to put a date on when we will achieve that, and I do not want to say that I am confident, because we have 27 nations to line up behind the action. However, I assure him that our Government will make full efforts to ensure that the sanctions part of the package is as strong as the offer. At each stage, we need to make it clear to the Iranian people that we do not have a quarrel with them. We want to ensure a change of behaviour on the part of the regime. It is up to the people to choose their Government, but their Government must conform to the rules of the international community.
I have read of those reports. There are two aspects to the issue. One aspect is to do with the amount of aid going through the Afghan Government. I am pleased to say that 80 per cent. of British Government aid goes through the Afghan Government, rather than alongside them. That is something that should be matched by other donors. The second aspect is about whether the pledges that were given at the London and other conferences are being matched. I will write to my hon. Friend with the full details about that, because I would not want to put a figure on it at this stage, without being absolutely sure whether two thirds or 75 per cent. of what was pledged has been delivered.
Given that the Prime Minister said in his national security strategy statement last week that accelerating global nuclear disarmament was a key objective, can the Foreign Secretary explain how that fits with the Government’s agreement that RAF Menwith Hill could be used for the US ballistic missile system, particularly when President Bush rebuffed President Putin’s offer to work together on the issue? If the Government really think that a one-sided ballistic missile defence system is such a good way of promoting nuclear disarmament, will the Foreign Secretary accept the recommendation made by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and let the whole House have a proper debate on Britain’s involvement with the “Son of Star Wars” project?
The fact is that the United Kingdom welcomes the US expansion of the ballistic missile defence into Europe. We think that the sitings in the Czech Republic and Poland are an important protection against a potential attack by a rogue state. It is clear that the system offers no challenge whatever to Russia’s strategic missiles, in terms of either its location or its capacity. That is generally accepted. The fact is that the US has offered to share the information, importantly, with Russia and with NATO allies. We welcome that very much indeed. We should not be criticising the US for seeking to deal with the threat; instead, we should be showing a united effort in trying to deal with those rogue states that the missile defence system is designed to protect us from.
Extra-judicial executions continue in Colombia, with many trade unionists killed and others living under constant threat. What are the Government doing to call the Colombian Government to account within the international community, and will they consider a review of military aid to Colombia?
Both my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have met the Colombian Government on numerous occasions and have stressed always that they should do their utmost to protect all those who campaign for human rights, especially trade unionists, who after all are an important part of civil society and help to bring a sense of security to Colombia. We will continue to do that. I am sure that my hon. Friend will continue to support our efforts to undermine the murderous influence of paramilitary groups, on the right and the left in Colombia, that seek to undermine the authority of a democratically elected Government.
The Government have made it clear that we expect Simon Mann to be treated in line with internationally recognised standards, which includes in relation to the media. It is correct that our consular officials were refused access last week. We have made clear our concern to the Equatorial Guinean authorities and are urgently seeking access again.
I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that we must do everything that we can to hold the Nepalese authorities and the Maoists to the earliest possible date for an election. The delays have gone on for long enough. We hope very much that the United Nations will continue to play an influential role, and that India, the key player in this area, will use its good offices to ensure that the elections take place and that a proper democratic Government will start to bring peace to that country.
I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has been able to raise this important issue. The Prime Minister had the chance to meet the new President of Cyprus at the European Council last week, and I have been able to have a meeting with the new Cypriot Foreign Minister. The consistent message that we have given to both of them is that we want to do everything possible to support the determination of the new Government in Cyprus to exploit the opening that now exists for a bi-zonal, bi-communal solution in that area. My right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) is playing an important role as the Prime Minister’s special representative on the issue. We are as determined as the whole House is to ensure that there is a restart of these processes. The mission of the UN, which is due in Cyprus very soon, represents an important contribution towards that aim.
Constitutional Renewal
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about our programme of constitutional renewal. With this statement are published a White Paper, the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, and an analysis of the responses to our consultations. Copies of these are available in the Vote Office and on my Ministry’s website.
The accountability of Government is fundamental to the health of our democracy. Arbitrary action and lack of transparency can undermine that. But for decades the royal prerogative has been used by successive Governments to sustain Executive power. Last July, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced his determination that the Government he leads would reverse this process and surrender significant Executive powers to Parliament, or otherwise limit them. Following my right hon. Friend’s July statement and the accompanying “The Governance of Britain” Green Paper, five consultation papers were issued. I am grateful to all who responded to them. We have taken account of their views in the White Paper and in the draft Bill.
The draft Bill is in five parts. The first relates to protest around Parliament. In July, the Prime Minister undertook to consult widely on managing protests around Parliament to ensure that the people’s right to protest was not subject to unnecessary restrictions. Accordingly, in the light of the consultations, clause 1 of the draft Bill proposes the repeal of sections 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Our view is that Parliament itself is best placed to decide what needs to be secured to ensure that Members of both Houses are able freely to discharge their responsibilities. We invite the views of Parliament on whether additional provision is needed to keep open the passages leading to the Palace of Westminster and to ensure that, for example, excessive noise is not used to disrupt the working of Parliament.
Part 2 of the Bill deals with the Attorney-General. It sets out major reforms to the role of the Attorney-General and to the management of prosecutions, to make the arrangements more transparent and to enhance public confidence. The proposals involve recasting the relationship between the Attorney-General and the prosecuting authorities. In particular, the Attorney-General will cease to have any power to give directions to prosecutors in individual cases, save in certain exceptional cases which give rise to issues of national security. The Attorney-General will have to report to Parliament on any exercise of that power. Under clause 3, a protocol will set out how the Attorney-General and the prosecuting authorities are to exercise their functions in relation to each other. This will be laid before Parliament, as will an annual report. We do not propose changing the Attorney-General’s role as chief legal adviser to the Government, or his or her attendance at Cabinet.
Part 3 builds on the significant reforms introduced by my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Falconer to reinforce the independence of the judiciary. The Bill proposes to remove the Prime Minister entirely from the making of judicial appointments, and the Lord Chancellor from making appointments below the High Court.
Part 4 makes it a statutory requirement that treaties must be laid before both Houses of Parliament before ratification. If this House were then to vote against the ratification of a treaty, the Government could not proceed to ratify it. Although it is obviously a matter for Parliament, the White Paper suggests that a valuable role could be played by Committees of either or both Houses in the scrutiny of treaties prior to ratification. I should just say, Mr. Speaker, that none of these proposals affects the current arrangements for European Union or tax treaties, which are already the subject of elaborate statutory procedures.
Part 5 will for the first time put the civil service on a statutory footing by enshrining the core values of the civil service—impartiality, integrity, honesty and objectivity—into law, as well as the historic principle of appointment on merit. The Bill makes provision for special advisers and the civil service commission. The Bill has benefited from detailed comments on the draft Civil Service Bill in 2004 and from the work of the Public Administration Committee, for whose help I am very grateful.
I now turn to the other key proposals in the White Paper. The first is war powers. There was a widespread welcome in July for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s proposals that the Government should limit the Executive’s powers to deploy Her Majesty’s armed forces into conflict situations. As well as from those who responded to the consultation document, we have benefited from earlier Select Committee reports from both Houses. In the event, there was significant support for the recommendations from the House of Lords Constitution Committee.
What we are proposing is that Parliament’s role should be both enshrined and guaranteed by a resolution of this House. A detailed draft of that resolution is set out for consideration on pages 53 to 56 of the White Paper. It would require the Prime Minister of the day to seek this House’s approval before deciding to commit forces to armed conflict abroad. It would also require him to lay a report before the House in advance of any decision, setting out the terms of approval sought and information about the objectives and legal matters relating to the proposed armed conflict. Exceptions are proposed in respect of emergencies and operational secrecy, with a requirement in such cases to inform, but not to seek retrospective approval. Special forces would be exempt from any of those provisions. Those changes, if agreed, would define for the first time a clear role for Parliament in the most critical of all decisions to face a nation, while ensuring that our nation’s security was not compromised.
Last July’s “The Governance of Britain” Green Paper contained proposals on increasing parliamentary scrutiny of some key public appointments. Since then, that matter has been considered by the Liaison Committee and we will respond to its recommendations shortly. On the dissolution and recall of Parliament, proposals have already been made to the Modernisation Committee, and we look forward to hearing its views in due course.
Last Wednesday, in his statement on the national security strategy, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said:
“We will…immediately go ahead to introduce a resolution of both Houses—in advance of any future legislation—that will enshrine an enhanced scrutiny and public role for the Intelligence and Security Committee.”—[Official Report, 19 March 2008; Vol. 473, c. 926.]
The White Paper sets out the proposed arrangements.
There are other matters relating to Executive prerogative powers, the first of which is passports. The Government are committed to reviewing the prerogative power with regard to issuing passports, and draft legislation will soon be published. We are also reviewing the remaining Executive prerogative powers—for example, the prerogative to grant mercy. The Government will consider the outcome of that work and how we plan to proceed, and obviously, we will inform the House.
The Government remain profoundly committed to the establishment of the Church of England and greatly value the role played by the Church in our national life. Appointments to senior Church positions will continue to be made by Her Majesty the Queen, who should continue to be advised on the exercise of her powers by one of her Ministers, usually the Prime Minister. We are very grateful to the General Synod for its proposals at its February meeting on how new appointments procedures should work, and we are discussing future long-term arrangements with the Church.
The Government received more than 300 responses to the consultation on the flying of the Union Flag—
All from my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell).
Not all of them were from the hon. Member for Romford, but as the House knows, I was extremely happy to join him in his campaign, and have made my own contribution to it.
In line with the majority of responses, we have decided that the interim change made to the guidance to allow Government Departments to fly the Union flag from their buildings whenever they wish should now become permanent. There are no plans to change the arrangements for flag flying in Northern Ireland.
Good law is imperative for accessible and modern constitutional arrangements. For 40 years the Law Commission has played a vital role in that respect, but I intend to strengthen its role by placing a statutory duty on the Lord Chancellor to report annually to Parliament on the Government’s intentions regarding outstanding Law Commission recommendations, and providing a statutory backing for the arrangements underpinning the way in which Government should work with the Law Commission. Those changes sit alongside those announced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House last week, which will strengthen the scrutiny of laws after they have been enacted by Parliament.
Discussions in the cross-party working group on reform of the House of Lords are proceeding well, and we are on track to publish a White Paper before the summer recess. In the coming months we will publish a Green Paper on a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, and on the values that should bind us together as citizens.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland announced today, Professor Sir Kenneth Calman has agreed to serve as chair of a commission to review the Scotland Act 1998. Such a commission was proposed in, and approved by a majority of, the Scottish Parliament. The Government welcome their support for the aim of strengthening devolution and securing Scotland’s place in the Union, and we are giving our full backing to the cross-border, cross-party review.
The proposals in the White Paper and the draft Bill go to the heart of how power should be exercised in a modern democracy. They are not a final blueprint, but part of a much wider Government programme to secure a new constitutional settlement. They will strengthen the role of Parliament in our democracy, for it is Parliament, the seat of our democracy, that is central to this programme of constitutional renewal.
I commend my statement to the House.
I thank the Secretary of State for Justice for early sight of his statement. There is much in the Government’s proposals with which we can agree. We welcome measures to strengthen the autonomy of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and to place on a statutory basis the rules governing ratification of treaties. We also welcome—seven years after the Government’s commitment to it—legislation to put the civil service on a statutory footing, as recommended by our democracy taskforce, but why will the Government not go further and place a statutory cap on the number of special advisers? And, although pre-appointment scrutiny hearings by Select Committees would be welcome, should not Parliament be strengthened further, not least by the ability to set its own timetable, so that we can scrutinise legislation properly?
The decision to commit troops to conflict is one of the most important that a nation can take. Last May we tabled a motion to require parliamentary approval for substantial deployments of troops into conflict. I welcome the fact that the Government now accept that principle, but when prior approval cannot be sought, why should there not be a mechanism for securing retrospective approval?
In a democracy, citizens should have the right to make their views known peacefully to those who govern them. The Government’s laws restricting the right to protest around Parliament caused widespread disquiet, and we welcome plans to repeal them, but can the Government say more about how they plan to ensure that while peaceful protest is protected, demonstrations that disrupt the operation of Parliament are not?
We welcome the commitment to introduce greater clarity into the relationship between the Attorney-General and the prosecution directors, but it is also proposed to end the requirement for the Attorney-General to give consent for a wide range of prosecutions. How is accountability to be preserved if that role is removed from the Attorney-General?
An independent judiciary is at the core of our liberty. Reducing the influence of the Executive on judicial appointments is welcome, but does the Justice Secretary agree that the principle of judicial independence is harmed when Ministers seek to influence the sentencing decisions of judges and magistrates—for instance, by urging them not to imprison offenders because the jails are full?
In a newspaper article today, the Prime Minister said that the Justice Secretary would today be “consulting throughout the country” on a statement of values and the British Bill of rights and duties—but in his statement the Justice Secretary said that a Green Paper will be published over the coming months. Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify when this process will begin? Will it do so today, as the Prime Minister suggested, or over the coming months?
Will the Justice Secretary also tell us whether, as was reported yesterday, he plans to consult on alternative voting systems for the Commons, and compulsory voting, and if so, when? Does the Justice Secretary agree that the electoral system should never be reformed for partisan political purposes?
The Prime Minister also wrote today in support of the Union, but is it not the case that unbalanced devolution has unleashed the forces of nationalism? So far, the Government’s answer has been to fly flags on Government buildings. Will the Calman commission, announced today, address the real issue of concern, which is the still unanswered West Lothian question?
When the Prime Minister announced his ideas for constitutional reform last July, he spoke about rebuilding trust in democracy. Since then, he has refused the referendum that he promised on the EU constitution. How can trust be rebuilt if such important promises are broken? Is it not the case that the relationship between the people and politicians is seriously damaged, and that it will require more to repair our broken politics than the measures announced today?
When more and more decisions are being taken centrally—not here in Parliament, but in Whitehall—is not the real need to return power to individuals and communities, so that people have a genuine say over decisions that affect them? Why are we not giving citizens the power to initiate debates in this House and have new laws tabled? Is there not a pressing need both for measures to ensure transparency in how we as politicians account for ourselves and our spending to the electorate, and to put an end to the culture of spin, which has so gravely undermined trust in politics? If the Government continue to shy away from real change, is not the danger that measures such as those announced today will be seen as worthy but inadequate?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the welcome he gave to the proposals, but let me say in response to his slight chiding—that civil service reform has taken a little time, for example—that we have acted on a vast range of constitutional changes, in contrast to the Conservative Administration, who over 18 years did absolutely nothing in respect of any such changes. Also, on the issue of the Union, his history is wrong. The devolution settlement in 1998 was to bind the Union and provide legitimate transfer of power from this place to the devolved Administrations of Scotland and Wales. It was not the devolution Acts in 1998 that drove nationalism; it was the poll tax in 1987, which fuelled it to an astonishing extent and led to a situation in which Scotland became a Conservative-free zone, although the Conservatives had had 50 per cent. of the votes and seats some decades before.
The hon. Gentleman asked me some specific questions; for example, he asked about special advisers. The draft Bill is for consultation by this House; we have a view about whether there should be a limit, but let us hear what the House has to say.
As for retrospective approval where there has been an operational need for a decision to go into armed conflict to be made in secrecy, or where other operational matters have been involved, we have thought about that a great deal. Ultimately, it should be a matter for this House, but there are genuine problems—for example, if, when troops have already been committed to a theatre, there is then a big question about whether the action will subsequently be approved. We hope that, aside from operations by special forces, occasions when there is a total emergency and this country needs to undertake major armed conflict in secrecy are likely to be very few and far between. I cannot think of any such example over the past 20 years. That was why we came to the judgment that we did, but let us hear what the House has to say.
All I would say about access to this House is that the Sessional Orders used to work very satisfactorily. When I was organising demonstrations myself a few years ago, they were certainly enforced by the public order office in respect of the organisations for which I was responsible. [Interruption.]
He was arrested!
No, I was never arrested.
The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) raises an important point on consent to prosecutions, but we cannot have it both ways. It is proposed that the requirement for the Attorney-General to give consent to a series of prosecutions should, in general, be removed. If we want to make prosecutors more independent, we must bite that bullet. Ultimately, the choice will be one for this House and the other place, but we cannot have things both ways. The Attorney-General will still be accountable for the broad operation and management of the prosecution service, and I think that that is appropriate.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about voting systems. I think he was directly quoting me, because although I claim no monopoly on the view, I have always said that we should never change the voting system for partisan purposes. That has been the practice in one or two European countries, usually with disastrous consequences for the parties doing the proposing. We published a review of voting systems. Personally, I am profoundly committed to single-Member constituencies. I have always thought that there is much to be said on both sides, whether we are talking about first past the post or the alternative vote, particularly as we now have multiple candidates, as opposed to the situation in the 1950s when there were normally simply two candidates.
Let me make it clear that we are against making it a criminal offence not to vote. We need to address the issue of how we can raise turnout at elections, and there is a case for there to be a general non-enforceable duty for people to vote, as part of their understanding of their responsibilities as citizens; we are consulting on that. On citizens’ powers, I merely say to the hon. Gentleman that when I was Leader of the House we put forward radical proposals to the Procedure Committee for improving how the petitions system works so that matters could be triggered in this House. It was a matter for the Procedure Committee that they came to a different view from some of us on the Modernisation Committee.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly his comment that this is not the final blueprint. I ask him to include provision for the abolition of the Act of Settlement, because it discriminates directly against Roman Catholics. That is legalised sectarianism, which has no role to play in the 21st century.
Let me say to my hon. Friend that I speak on behalf of the Prime Minister: because of the position that Her Majesty occupies as head of the Anglican Church, this is a rather more complicated matter than might be anticipated. We are certainly ready to consider it, and I fully understand that my hon. Friend, many on both sides of the House and thousands outside it, see that provision as antiquated.
I, too, thank the Secretary of State for advance notice of his statement. Will he acknowledge that although some aspects of it are welcome—for example, the abolition of the absurd restrictions on demonstrating around Parliament—much of what he has said will be seen as tentative first steps and half measures?
It is right that the Attorney-General should not give direction on individual prosecutions, and should give only general policy guidance that is open and on the record. However, does the Secretary of State not accept that as long as the Attorney-General retains a broad, unaccountable power to stop prosecutions on grounds of national security, the public will not be reassured about, for example, the shameful events surrounding the dropping of the BAE Systems case? Why will the Attorney-General still have a power to stop prosecutions related to terrorism? Is it not important to fight terrorism on the basis of fighting crime, in a context that has nothing to do with political decisions?
The proposals on not releasing the Attorney-General’s legal opinions are especially poignant, given that later today we will debate the Iraq war. There is a strong case for confidentiality while policy is being formulated, but when the Government rely on that legal advice in a parliamentary debate, Parliament should see the real thing. It is not enough for the Government merely to promise not to mislead Parliament.
On treaty ratification, the Government are again taking a step in the right direction, but given their tight grip on the business of the House, does not the proposal mean that there will be a vote in the House only if the Government want one?
On the proposal to put the civil service on a statutory footing, there will be quiet rejoicing in many discreet quarters, but—again, on the day of a debate on Iraq—why are the Government to make an exception so that MI5 and MI6 officers will not be bound by duties of impartiality and objectivity? Surely one central lesson of Iraq is that never again should Government policy dictate intelligence.
On the limiting of the Prime Minister’s power to call early elections, which was given short shrift in the statement, I invite the Government to clear up the whole mess by supporting my Fixed Term Parliaments Bill.
Is not the main problem with the statement that it is nibbling at the edges of constitutional reform? Our political system is broken and people are losing faith in politics. That means that if we do nothing about it, they will lose faith in democracy itself. This House is at the heart of the problem, being elected in so unrepresentative a way that all Governments start out as unpopular, and usually get worse. As in 1832, and many times since, reform must start with the way in which this House is elected.
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s criticisms of the changes. These are major and significant changes, and it has fallen to this reforming Government to introduce them, when no changes of any constitutional significance were introduced by the previous Administration.
In response to the hon. Gentleman’s points about the Attorney-General, it is our judgment that it is appropriate and proper, and in the national interest, that there should be a power for someone to make difficult and sometimes unwelcome decisions to protect national security. It is important that whoever is in that position should be accountable. Far from the Attorney-General being unaccountable, our proposals mean that they would be more accountable than they are today, and there would be greater clarity about their distinctive role.
On the issue of the Attorney-General’s legal advice, my belief is that, as with any legal advice in any circumstances, it has to be given on the basis of legal professional privilege, but there is certainly a case—as referred to in the draft resolution on pages 53 to 56 of the proposals—for the Prime Minister of the day to be required to provide information on the legal issues relating to any proposal for armed conflict, and that is what we propose.
On treaty ratification, there will have to be a vote. We are not proposing to use the negative resolution procedure. Either the treaty will be approved on the nod or there will be a vote. If there is a vote against a treaty ratification the treaty cannot be ratified by the Government, and that is a major shift of power to this House.
I wondered how long it would take the Liberals to get on to proportional representation as a solution to all our problems. They have been banging on about that ever since the 1923 election, when they ceased to be the second party and became the third party. Before they became the third party, they were in favour of first past the post and single-Member constituencies. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman examine other countries that have proportional representation, because they have more problems with the operation of their democracy than we do.
Can my right hon. Friend elaborate on the proposals in the White Paper for the accountability of the Intelligence and Security Committee? As he knows, at the moment it is appointed by the Prime Minister and reports to the Prime Minister. Is it intended that it should be appointed by this House and report to this House?
These arrangements—as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spelled out, they are in advance of any legislative changes—are set out at the back of the White Paper. The proposed changes would be consistent with the provisions of the Intelligence Services Act 1994, so that under the proposal, which is a halfway house, it would be for the Committee of Selection to make recommendations about the Members of each House who should sit on the Committee. They would then have to be approved by the Prime Minister of the day, however, because that is what the Act says. The implication is that, as an interim measure, that would give this House and the other place much greater control over membership of the Committee than they have now.
I welcome proposals to reform the Crown prerogative. Too many powers that should rightfully rest with elected members of this legislature have come to reside with unelected officials and with the quango state. Will the Bill allow Select Committees to ratify with public hearings the appointments of senior civil servants and quango chiefs, and if not, why not?
The proposals on public appointments of key officials are not in the Bill. They are proposed for non-legislative changes through discussions with the Liaison Committee, but this is a consultative process, and we are happy to hear opinions from all parts of the House.
May I refer to the issue of judicial appointments? Is it not a fact that, like this country, nearly every other major country has significant political input in the appointment of judges, either from the legislature or the Executive, for the very good reason that public opinion needs to be able to influence the culture of the judiciary? Is not the alternative to have lawyers appointing judges, which would be quite unacceptable? We would have a self-perpetuating, out-of-touch, arrogant oligarchy in the judiciary, which would be very damaging to public confidence in the judiciary and in democracy.
It is rare for me to demur from my right hon. Friend’s opinions, but on this occasion I do so. I do not accept his description of today’s judiciary. In 2005 the House agreed—and so did the other place—major changes to the appointments of the judiciary so that the role of Lord Chancellor was very much diminished, and quite right too.[Interruption.] Not in every sense. There is now an independent Judicial Appointments Commission, which has the primary role. Judges are also, funnily enough, human beings. They are members of society and are acutely aware of the responsibility that they bear to society.
Although I welcome the fact that the Government have moved much closer to the position of the former Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the role of the Attorney-General, why is the Attorney-General to retain the power to stop on grounds of national security not merely prosecutions but investigations by the Serious Fraud Office? Will the Attorney-General also retain the consent to prosecution under the honours legislation of the 1920s? As those were the two issues that most inflamed debate on the Attorney-General’s role, is that not a bit too much of a coincidence and too much like back doors being deliberately left open?
On the latter point, I do not think that that is the case, but I shall certainly look at the matter. The aim of all of us involved in the discussions has been to reduce the Attorney-General’s discretion over prosecutions and investigations to a necessary minimum that is basically to do with national security.
On the point about BAE Systems, it is worth reminding the House that it was the head of the Serious Fraud Office who decided to withdraw from the investigation, not formally the Attorney-General. We all accept that there must be clarity, but I also believe that the case for the Attorney-General to have a power to make decisions in the national interest, on the basis of national security, is important.
So far, so excellent, but will my right hon. Friend also include in his constitutional proposals the improvement of the Executive’s accountability to the legislature? In particular, will he put in place arrangements to ensure that Select Committee members are elected by secret ballot among non-Executive Members from across the House, in accordance with party quotas? Will he also ensure that Select Committees reports—or at least some of them, by agreement with the Liaison Committee—are debated and voted on, on the Floor of the House on a substantive motion?
I shall quit while I am ahead as far as my right hon. Friend’s compliments are concerned.
The way in which Select Committee members are chosen has been debated often. Having been involved in the other process from time to time, I am not sure that it produced more balanced Select Committees or provided more opportunity for those who sometimes disagree with their party Whips than the current arrangements. The process that my right hon. Friend sets out would need the most contorted and complicated system of proportional representation for each party. No doubt that would be welcomed by the Liberal Democrats, but it would not be welcomed by anyone else.
The House will have heard that the Justice Secretary believes that, when it comes to flag flying, the people of Northern Ireland should be treated as children of a lesser god. Will he tell the House the rationale behind the Government’s decision on this matter? Does he believe that the flag may not be universally cherished in Northern Ireland? If so, will that have implications elsewhere in the kingdom?
The reason for the Government’s decision is obvious, and it is not the one that the hon. Gentleman mentions. As everyone knows, the two communities in Northern Ireland have been seriously divided. The best advice that we received was that we should maintain the current arrangements for Northern Ireland.
This is a welcome and important package of measures that will play an important part in our constitutional history. However, does my right hon. Friend accept that it would be greatly enhanced if the Government added to it parliamentary confirmation of important executive offices? Among the obvious candidates for that confirmation would be the chief executives of the Child Support Agency and the Benefits Agency, the chairman of the BBC, the Governor of the Bank of England, and the members of the Monetary Policy Committee.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his broad welcome for the proposals. A procedure is already in place whereby the Treasury Committee considers Bank of England appointments. The current proposals are non-statutory, as I said a moment ago, but we will listen carefully to what hon. Members of all parties say. I should also have said that we have proposed that a Joint Committee comprised of Members of both Houses be set up to scrutinise the Bill that will be introduced.
As one who believes that this Executive have done more to sideline Parliament and the legislature than any other in recent history, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will take at least one step to dismiss our scepticism to some degree? Will he give an undertaking that, in future, Bills will not be timetabled automatically, at the Government’s diktat?
I am sorry to say that I cannot oblige the hon. Gentleman in that regard. I have been here almost as long as he has, and I do not accept that the House is less active than it used to be. It is much more active than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, although the fact that no Government since the 1970s have had a small majority has inevitably changed the nature of the House. There is also hugely more in the way of scrutiny today. Select Committees were established by the Conservative Government of the 1980s, but they have been strengthened by us and are much more active. There are also many more parliamentary questions: there were 6,000 written questions a year in the 1960s, but there were 90,000 last year. There is much greater scrutiny of Government than there ever was in the past.
I welcome the greater scrutiny of public appointments, but there is one particular appointment that I suggest should be not only scrutinised but voted on in the House: the appointment of the EU Commissioner.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. I will discuss it with my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.
I welcome the further statement on policy on war powers, but does the Justice Secretary agree that in practice we need to know all the details of the new process before we can know whether there has been any significant shift of authority to this House, or new constraints on the Government, particularly with regard to whether parliamentary approval will be asked for at a time when events can still be influenced? Does he accept that recent practice has been to deny until the last possible moment that any decision has been taken to enter into conflict, while vast deployments of troops are made and undertakings are given to allies? Will the resolution provide that as soon as a decision is taken to move troops to an area of potential conflict, where conflict is one of the options, it will be necessary to get parliamentary approval?
The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes an important point. I hope that he will examine the draft resolution, and I hope that the Joint Committee that we propose to establish will do so, too. In my judgment, the resolution will move the role of the House beyond existing conventions, such as that which we sought to establish on Iraq, and will change the way in which the Government will operate, internally, where there is consideration of an armed conflict. That is what I want, personally, not least as a result of my experience in respect of Iraq and Afghanistan. The purpose of putting this set of proposals before the House today—this also applies to the draft Bill, although the proposal in question is in the White Paper—is to have them tested properly by the House and the other place, so that we can see whether they will fulfil the purpose we describe.
I welcome the range of proposals in the White Paper, particularly those that strengthen the role of Parliament. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that the legitimacy of Parliament depends on how and when elections are conducted. In “The Governance of Britain” Green Paper, it was suggested that there would be consultations on weekend voting. Is it his intention that the consultations will result in the inclusion of the possibility of weekend voting in the legislation that will be brought forward?
The answer is that we are consulting on weekend voting. There is much evidence that if voting takes place over a more extended period, turnout is likely to be higher, all other things being equal. I cannot give my hon. Friend a firm commitment that the measure will be in the Bill when it comes before Parliament in its final form, but we are looking for an early legislative opportunity, if the measure is what the public want.
Will the Secretary of State confirm that part 4 of the Bill wraps up the discussions and exchanges that we had about a year ago on whether or not treaty can prevail against statute—in other words, that treaty cannot prevail against statute? Secondly, why did he say in his statement, “If this House were then to vote against the ratification of a treaty, the Government could not proceed to ratify it”? Does that exclude the House of Lords? Of course, I am not thinking of any particular treaty.
The hon. Gentleman and I have bored for Britain on the interesting issue that the Karlsruhe federal constitutional court raised called “competence versus competence.” The proposal will at least ensure that any treaty is ratified by a statutory process of this Parliament. The current proposal is that, since we have to allow for the possibility—hopefully remote—of a stand-off between this place and the other place, it should be the elected House that decides.
The Canadian Parliament debated and voted on the decision to send 2,500 troops to Helmand province. In a non-emergency situation in April 2006, we decided to send what is now 7,800 troops to Helmand province without a debate or a vote in Parliament. In the spirit of the very welcome document before us, is it not time that we debated the mission in Helmand?
I will certainly pass on to my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House my hon. Friend’s specific request. To return to the question asked by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), it is in respect of such conflict in Helmand that the change, if accepted by the House, would in my judgment make a significant difference to decision making in the Government and to the House’s authority.
I am quite surprised that there is so little about Scotland in the constitutional paper, given the unanswered West Lothian question and the ridiculous remarks by the Prime Minister in The Daily Telegraph today. We have learned that Sir Kenneth Calman is to chair the constitutional commission, but how can the Scottish people have any faith in an initiative that ignores the central question of Scottish independence, and bypasses legitimate Scottish government? As a democrat, surely the Justice Secretary agrees that anything proposed by the commission must be tested by the Scottish people with all other constitutional options.
It might be a good idea if the hon. Gentleman recognised the legitimacy of the majority of the Scottish Parliament, who voted entirely voluntarily to establish the review; all the Unionist parties voted in favour of it. We are responding to that request from a democratically elected Scottish Parliament.
Is there anything in the draft Bill that addresses the scandal of tax exiles serving in Parliament? If not, will the Justice Secretary lift the relevant clauses from my private Member’s Bill, and incorporate them in his Bill?
I understand my hon. Friend’s sentiments, but we have no plans to do so.
The right hon. Gentleman’s proposals that the Executive should yield power to Parliament would be even more impressive if the votes in the House were a free, unwhipped expression of opinion. Does he not concur with the advice that I give all my Back-Bench colleagues that all votes in the House are free? Furthermore, when the Whips seek to impress on me their own will, I tell them—and I hope that he agrees—that it is none of their business, and they should not interfere with the constitutional duty of Members of Parliament to vote in accordance with their own judgment.
He didn’t say that when he was a Whip!
The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) has taken the words out of my mouth. This is a latter-day Pauline conversion, because I remember the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) going around arm-twisting Conservative Members while taking the Queen’s shilling as a Government Whip. Now that he is an unguided missile on the Conservative Back Benches he has changed his opinion. He is entitled to do so, but government would be difficult to operate under any party without any whipping.
I do not understand what the Prime Minister said last week on the Intelligence and Security Committee, which was reiterated this afternoon by the Justice Secretary in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). It is a minute adjustment—a ritualistic change—as the nominated members have to go before the Committee of Selection, but they still have to be approved by the Prime Minister. I do not understand the problem: why does the Justice Secretary not legislate to create parliamentary oversight of security and intelligence, so that instead of a spook providing the secretariat, the Clerk of the House of Commons does so? All the members should be appointed on the same basis as members are appointed to the Select Committee on Transport, the Foreign Affairs Committee or the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. What is the problem? Why does he not trust Parliament?
The Government’s proposals are set out on pages 59 to 61 of the White Paper. Last Wednesday, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that we would introduce a resolution of the House for change in advance of any future legislation. I take my hon. Friend’s remarks and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) as strong representations that there should be such legislation.
On part 1 of the Bill, although no one would object to orderly and peaceful demonstrations in Parliament square, many people object to permanent, unsightly encampments in the middle of a great, historic city. Will the Bill put that right?
I understand that there are strong feelings about that. Those encampments are unsightly, but they also represent people exercising a right to demonstrate. The changes in the law have not been conspicuously successful—[Interruption.] It is no good pointing at me; I am not the police. The changes in the law have not been conspicuously successful in dealing with the problem, and they have appeared to be pretty heavy- handed as well, so better arrangements are needed. Let us see what the House has to say about it.
I had hoped to hear more in the statement about electoral systems, including the possibility of compulsory voting in elections. May I ask the Secretary of State for Justice to look urgently at the issue of postal voting? In the last general election, between one in six and one in seven votes were by post. As was seen in Slough recently, where the Conservatives cheated and won a seat through fraudulent stuffing of ballots, existing legislation does not sufficiently protect us from such fraud. Will he use the Bill to consider whether we can put in new safeguards?
Significant changes to the security of postal voting were made in the Electoral Administration Act 2006. I well understand, however, the concerns that further tightening of the procedures is needed, and we are giving that urgent consideration.
Do the proposals for the reform of the House of Lords, which the right hon. Gentleman referred to in his statement, entail the abolition of all or most of the unelected places in that House? If so, how would a Government deal with the likely No vote in the Lords to such changes?
The basic terms of reference, so to speak, of the cross-party group are the decisions of this House last March in favour of an 80 per cent. or wholly elected Chamber and against any alternatives, so as faithful servants of the House, that is what we are seeking to deliver. The proposals will, of course, have to go in legislative form to both Houses. We will have to see what happens, but I hope very much that when we present proposals, they will be approved.
I welcome what my right hon. Friend said about the greater inclusion of Parliament in the ratification of treaties and in the long overdue system of post-legislative scrutiny. Does he agree that along with an ever wider and deeper commitment to pre-legislative scrutiny and improvements to the way in which European legislation is scrutinised in Parliament as a whole, the proposals provide us with a good opportunity for a thorough debate on the distinctive roles and responsibilities of the second Chamber, and that until we have a settlement and agreement on the roles and responsibilities of the second Chamber, major structural reform is premature?
The proposals do provide us with that opportunity, but I do not want in the statement to rehearse the arguments in favour of significant changes to the House of Lords, except to say that clear decisions were made last March and we are taking them forward.
Picking up a question that I was asked by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), I may have inadvertently misled the House about the contents of the White Paper as to whether it was a negative or an affirmative resolution procedure. Currently a negative resolution procedure is proposed, but I take what the hon. Gentleman and others said to be strongly in favour of an affirmative resolution procedure, and we will look at that.
Giving Parliament the power to vote on a dissolution will make no difference when a Government have an overall majority. The farce last autumn, when the Prime Minister dithered over the opinion polls and the decision whether to dissolve Parliament halfway through its term, would still be possible. How can the Lord Chancellor justify the continuation of a situation where the governing party could dissolve Parliament halfway through for no other reason than that it was ahead in the polls?
We have proposed to the Modernisation Committee that where the Prime Minister proposes the dissolution of Parliament—that is the system that we have, and it is the system in most parliamentary democracies, though not all—he would have to receive a vote on that by this House before it could go ahead.
Successive Governments have found difficulty in creating parliamentary time to deal with outstanding Law Commission reports. Last year the Government conceded to pressure in this House and the Lords when there was an attempt to find a means of dealing with outstanding reports through the Regulatory Reform Bill, as it was then. It is all very well having a report from the Lord Chancellor. What mechanisms do the Government intend to put in place to deal with important outstanding reports?
I understand the frustration that my hon. Friend has mentioned, and I repeat my great praise for successive law commissioners, who have done a terrific job. Speaking for this Government—and also, I think, for previous ones—I should say that Governments have not done enough to ensure that commissioners’ recommendations are brought in timeously.
We are proposing a change of procedure for non-contentious Law Commission proposals. The other changes that we are proposing would ensure that within Government the commission’s reports were not sometimes shelved on grounds of inconvenience. There would have to be a process within Government for taking forward Law Commission proposals that were broadly agreed.
Between 1965 and 1976, I was an election agent and was involved on numerous occasions in local, national and European elections. I assure the House that at that time the electoral system was credible, seen to be fair and in total receipt of the confidence of the British electorate. That is not the case any longer. I was hopeful that in his statement today the Home Secretary would give us hope that he would put the matter right. He has failed to do so. Will he now give me an assurance that he will recognise the mistakes that his Government have made in the last 10 years and do something about the situation?
I am not the Home Secretary, but we will leave that minor matter aside. I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s view of the 1960s and 1970s; moreover, that view was not expressed by his party, which accused the House and the country of being ungovernable and our system of being in decay.
May I put forward an alternative point of view from that expressed in an earlier question about the Church of England? We should not encourage the Catholic Church—or, indeed, the Church of Scotland, which is also excluded—to come in. As we go further into the 21st century, this might be the time to separate state from Church, so that the Church is taken out of state business.
That is a point of view, but my view is that the established Church plays an important role in our constitution as well as in the faith of our society. It is significant that many of the Churches that are not members of the Anglican communion support the inclusion of Lords Spiritual in the other place, for example.
I was extremely concerned to read in yesterday’s edition of The Guardian that, according to its political editor, Ministers have already made a decision to introduce alternative voting systems. Can the Secretary of State give me a categorical assurance that that is not the case? Does he agree that he could introduce a new voting system only if he succeeded in a referendum of the British people on the issue, or if his party were re-elected at the next general election having included the issue in its manifesto?
I have already said on many occasions that one cannot use changes to the voting system as some kind of partisan tool. We are not proposing to do so. It is reasonable, however, for there to be a discussion about the alternative vote and we got that going when we published the review of voting systems about three months ago.
The Government will not be taken seriously in their supposed desire to return power to Parliament while they insist on keeping complete control of the timetable of parliamentary business. Does the Secretary of State not agree that they have made rather a bad start today in scheduling this important but not urgent statement in Opposition time, before an Opposition day debate?
Part of the trouble—and it has been ever thus—is that there is insufficient time on the Floor of the House. The Government Whips try to avoid statements on Opposition days; I think that the record on that in the past 10 or 11 years has been rather better than it was before. However, sometimes such things are unavoidable.
May I press the Lord Chancellor on one matter? In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), he did not clarify whether the Government would seek to change the voting system for electing Members of this House before or after the next general election.
I am clear about the fact that this is not a partisan proposal. We have come to no decisions about it. A review process is taking place that was launched with the review of voting systems.
In examining proposals for constitutional renewal, have the Government given any consideration to introducing a recall mechanism whereby in certain specific and exceptional circumstances constituents could remove their Member of Parliament during the course of a Parliament, not just at a general election?
We have not, as it happens, but there is a case for that, as there would be in respect of the other place. It has not so far been part of our constitutional arrangements, but there is a case for it.
BILL PRESENTED
Sustainable Energy (Local Plans)
Alan Simpson, supported by Mr. Tim Yeo, Julia Goldsworthy, Colin Challen, Mr. Elliot Morley, Mr. Michael Fallon, Mr. Michael Meacher, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Jim Dowd, Steve Webb, John Battle and Mr. David Drew, presented a Bill to promote energy efficiency; to require specified bodies to publish sustainable energy plans; to make provision for the transfer of functions to principal councils; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 17 October, and to be printed. [Bill 92].
Opposition Day
[8th Allotted Day]
Iraq Inquiry
We now come to the Opposition Day debate on the Iraq inquiry. I have to announce to the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. There is also a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.
I beg to move,
That this House calls for an inquiry by an independent committee of privy councillors to review the way in which the responsibilities of Government were discharged in relation to Iraq, and all matters relevant thereto, in the period leading up to military action in that country in March 2003 and its aftermath and to make recommendations on lessons to be drawn for the future.
The passing of the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war brings us naturally to consider once again the need for a high-level and wide-ranging inquiry into its origin and conduct. When we last debated the issue on 11 June last year, I think it is fair to say that a consensus emerged across the House that such an inquiry would be necessary at some point. Those of us who voted for the invasion of 2003, just as much as those who voted against it, expressed the view that the length of the conflict, the difficult and controversial nature of the decisions leading up to it, the extreme difficulties encountered afterwards, and the sheer immensity of the decision and of its consequences were all so great that a major inquiry would be unavoidable. The Government accepted that argument in principle, but argued that the appropriate time had not been reached.
The case that I wish to put to the House is that the nation expects, our troops deserve, and the facts lead to a fresh conclusion that the time to commence such an inquiry has now been reached. The passage of time, the urgent need to learn for the future, the need to reinforce the credibility of future decision taking, and the diminished role in Iraq of British forces all point to that clear conclusion. In a letter to the Prime Minister of 11 February, the Fabian Society put the case very well. It said:
“Iraq has been…the most controversial and publicly contested episode in British foreign policy for half a century, since Suez”.
It continued:
“An inquiry cannot change the course of events since 2003. But…A full inquiry would ensure that a rounded assessment of the pre-war diplomacy, the intelligence failures…the conduct of the war itself, and the difficulties of post-war political and economic reconstruction could inform future policy.”
It argued that the fifth anniversary of the war would be
“the right time for the government to set out plans to ensure the lessons from Iraq are learnt and inform the future of British foreign policy”.
In response, the Prime Minister maintained the Government line of the past 18 months, saying:
“This Government has already acknowledged there will come a time when it is appropriate to hold an inquiry. But…we believe that is not now.”
That statement was treated by some as a new development in Government policy, but in fact it brought us no nearer to an inquiry than at any time in the past 18 months. In the debate on this issue of 31 October 2006, which the nationalist parties initiated, Ministers did indeed refuse to concede the case for any inquiry, but the Defence Secretary then announced to the television cameras waiting outside:
“When the time is right, of course there will be such an inquiry.”
That has been the Government’s position for 18 months.
Do the Government have to initiate an inquiry? What is stopping Parliament from setting up its own inquiry, and would the right hon. Gentleman endorse that?
If the motion were carried, it would amount to Parliament’s insisting on such an inquiry. The hon. Gentleman is entirely at liberty to vote with us—as he seems to do on an increasingly regular basis—on this issue.
I will give way to the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes).
Given that discussions on Privy Council terms with leaders of his party and other parties took place before many of the crucial decisions, would the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is right that the Conservative party’s role and views throughout the proceedings should equally be the subject of the inquiry?
I am sure that no Opposition party would object if an inquiry wished to have access to any of its papers or records of its deliberations. The hon. Gentleman might not want to set that precedent in the case of his own party; if he is relaxed about it we may have inquiries in future on parties that promise things in elections and do not deliver them in opposition, but that is another matter.
Does the right hon. Gentleman go along with the idea that whenever an inquiry is held, it will be useless unless witnesses are obliged to swear an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? We have learned that from painful experience. The inquiry should afford support to witnesses who want to tell the truth but are being leaned on by superiors and people we do not see to be ambiguous or economical with the truth. For an inquiry to have any veracity, it is a prerequisite that people give evidence under oath.
There is no reason why that should not be built into an inquiry. If we were to carry the motion, the practical effect would be that the Government would have to come back with their own proposals for an inquiry. I am sure that they would want to build such a requirement into them.
As someone who voted against the Iraq war on every single occasion, I think that it ill becomes someone to come to the Dispatch Box and argue about an inquiry at this stage. It would be unreal for you to expect people like me to come into the Lobby with you. Could I pose a question back to you? If the right hon. Gentleman is looking at a position where you want an inquiry at this moment in time—
Order. I am trying to assist the hon. Gentleman in the use of the correct parliamentary language. He must not involve me by saying “you”. I think that he meant the right hon. Gentleman.
The best answer that I could give to the hon. Gentleman would be to develop the case of what an inquiry would look at now, and the argument for holding it now. I shall proceed to do that—
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
In fairness, I shall give way to the hon. Lady, who has been trying to intervene, and I shall then proceed a little way.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. While I am in favour of an inquiry, and I do not accept the Government’s arguments that the time is not right, I am concerned about its nature. If we vote for the right hon. Gentleman’s motion, how can we be sure that it will provide a full inquiry that will take evidence in public, preferably on oath, in which we can have every confidence? We have not had confidence in previous inquiries, with good reason.
The case we have set out in the motion is for a Privy Council inquiry, modelled on the inquiry that took place after the Falklands war. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), the practical result of the motion being carried would be that the Government would be required by Parliament to set up an inquiry, which would be a matter for further debate. My preferred model is that of a Privy Council inquiry. I want to set out the reasons for that in a moment.
Let me proceed a little way. I will give way to hon. Members in due course, but we have to remember that others will wish to speak.
The case in principle for an inquiry should, therefore, be agreed across the political spectrum. It was agreed after the last debate. For those of us who supported the invasion of March 2003, recent signs of hope in Iraq are welcome indeed. The security situation has improved, the Iraqi economy is growing, stumbling but genuine steps towards political reconciliation have taken place and optimism among the people of the country has risen. But we all have to recognise that the path to this renewal of hope has lain through a painful trauma, including the deaths of 175 members of our armed forces. While the 23 days of the initial military campaign to overthrow Saddam were astonishingly successful, the constant theme of those who have written about their involvement in subsequent events is that things went seriously wrong in the preparation for, and execution of, the occupation of the country.
Sir Hilary Synnott, who was in charge of southern Iraq under the coalition provisional authority, puts very well in his book the need to draw practical lessons from the events. That is part of the case for an inquiry beginning now. He says that, of course, the highest-level political decisions in the run-up to the war need to be examined, but that many practical issues also need to be considered. I shall quote him at some length. He mentions:
“The deficiencies of process and planning need to be examined in detail: the inability quickly to mobilise adequate numbers of appropriate experts or sufficient financial resources…The bureaucratic accounting and contracting procedures; the failures of communication and understanding—between the hub in Baghdad and the regional and provincial spokes…the failure to motivate and organise the Coalition Central Government Departments so that they were…able to contribute their particular skills and resources to an effort which needed to be a truly comprehensive one.”
He continues:
“Only by careful analysis of such failings will it be possible to decide to what extent changes need to be made and then…ensure they are brought about.”
rose—
I shall give way to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and then I will read further from Sir Hilary Synnott’s book.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that any inquiry needs to embark on the much more fundamental question of whether it is right for any nation to go to war in the absence of an express United Nations resolution, save when there is an urgent, genuine and immediate threat to its security or that of its immediate allies?
Of course, it would be open to an inquiry to examine the arguments about legality. I suspect that a difference of view would remain at the end, but it would be open to the inquiry to consider that.
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that some of us felt that, whatever preparation had been made in advance of the invasion, the war would inevitably lead to the sort of mess that exists now—in other words, those who voted against the war at the outset felt that it was impossible to avoid the quagmire that we now face?
Of course, there are people who hold that view. There are disagreements in the House and in every party about that. The hon. Gentleman may recall that the person who said:
“I happen to be on the side of those who believed Saddam Hussein had to be removed by force, but no one could have predicted they would have made such a mess of the peace building afterwards”
was his noble Friend Lord Ashdown. There is bound to be disagreement to some extent in any party about that.
Does my right hon. Friend share my opinion that it is clear that a majority in the House of Commons currently believes that there should be an inquiry now, but that the practical problem is that we will not get one in the lifetime of this Parliament until sufficient Labour Back Benchers are persuaded to support the proposal? Could he perhaps invite members of the Labour party who have already expressed such an opinion to table a motion, stipulating what sort of inquiry they would like, and contemplate our party or the Liberal Democrats giving time for debate so that we could mobilise a parliamentary majority to do what the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) suggested? Thus Parliament could reassert its right to call an inquiry when it wants.
That is, characteristically of my right hon. and learned Friend, a hugely constructive proposal. Indeed, hon. Members who differ with the terms that we propose but agree that there is a need for an inquiry may wish to do exactly as he suggests.
I will give way to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), who has been so persistent, and then I shall return to Sir Hilary Synnott’s book.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his graciousness. If the inquiry that he seeks through the motion took place and was completed before UK troops were withdrawn from Iraq, would he envisage a second inquiry?
That would depend on later events, but I do not think so. Given the stage that we have now reached of fulfilling an overwatch role and what is meant to become a training and mentoring role, pressure or a campaign for a second inquiry is highly unlikely.
rose—
Having spent the weekend reading Sir Hilary Synnott’s book, I am determined to impart my knowledge of it to the House. He makes an important point when he states:
“Understanding the causes and consequences of what went wrong in Iraq should not therefore be regarded as just an academic or historical exercise.”
In his opinion,
“Britain and America seem likely to be involved in more, not fewer, nation building efforts in the coming years…Even in Afghanistan, after more than six years of operations, the challenges show little sign of abating, and several of these are, yet again, being examined from first principles—police training…the role of Provincial reconstruction teams”,
and so on. He continues:
“Many of the shortcomings in that country have similarities with those in Iraq and still need to be properly assessed, with appropriate conclusions drawn.”
That, as I see it, is why a full-scale inquiry is of practical relevance, and why it might be of assistance to the future operations of this or any other Government and to our armed forces in the field elsewhere. To close our minds to learning from or to delay learning from the issues that Sir Hilary Synnott—the man in charge of governing southern Iraq on our behalf—has been talking about would be a dereliction of our duty, as well as that of the Government.
Can we get back to the terms of the right hon. Gentleman’s motion? It refers to
“the period leading up to military action in that country in March 2003”,
but when, in his opinion, did that period begin? Does it include what happened when the Thatcher Government were arming Saddam and implicitly supporting the repression of the Kurds, or does it simply start when the Labour Government were elected?
I do not think that that period starts with an election. Rather, it is for the members of the inquiry to decide; or, indeed, it is for the Government to bring forward terms of reference for an inquiry that set that out. That question is hardly an insurmountable obstacle to the setting up of a Privy Council or any other inquiry.
I am trying to involve all parts of the House, so I give way to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr. MacNeil).
I am grateful. To develop the argument that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) made, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, this being the third attempt to have an inquiry into Iraq, if we do not have one this time, owing to the practical problem of Labour Back Benchers, the message sent out to the public will be that to have such an inquiry, they must not vote Labour, but for somebody who will ensure that one is held?
We have not quite reached that point yet, but we might, if we continue like this, nearer to a general election.
Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I voted against the war in Iraq. I accept that lessons can be learned from any inquiry that can help the House better to understand how things might be conducted in the future. However, does he not share my worries about holding an inquiry at this stage, in that if it indicted the Government on the reasons for their entry into the war and how it was conducted, it would leave our troops currently in Iraq in a very vulnerable position, both militarily and politically?
No, I do not agree with that. I want to set out the case for commencing an inquiry, now or very shortly, and deal with that very point.
As it enters its sixth year, the conflict in Iraq will soon have lasted as long as the second world war. The formative decisions—about the occupation of Iraq, the disbandment of the army, de-Ba’athification and the overall manner in which the military occupation was conducted—were made either in the immediate aftermath of the invasion five years ago, or in some cases well before it. Decisions and analyses relating to the origins of the war and its planning were therefore made up to six or seven years ago.
Any inquiry would presumably take many months to hear and assemble evidence; so even if the Foreign Secretary were to announce an inquiry at the Dispatch Box today, it would entail key participants of those early decisions trying to give a crystal clear recollection, by the time they gave evidence, of events of perhaps seven or eight years earlier. An inquiry announced next year or the year after would require those recollections to stretch back anything up to a decade, with accompanying documents, e-mails and files intact. With the best will in the world, that is going to be difficult for those involved. A continuing delay of months or years—for all we know, the Prime Minister may well mean years—is not merely the postponement of an inquiry, but the diminishing of its value. Its task at a later date would be more difficult, and the accurate and detailed picture of important moments and key meetings would necessarily be more difficult to assemble.
The passage of time is also bringing into public view a series of welcome but inevitably partial assessments of the initial stages of the conflict, in the form of memoirs, lectures, diaries and responses to freedom of information requests. The Government succeeded in blocking the publication of the account of the experiences of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s senior diplomat at the UN and in Iraq, which was reported to include the observation that the opportunities for the post-conflict period were
“dissipated in poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution.”
Other accounts are well known, including the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) attacking the highly personalised form of decision making by the Government, the diaries of Alastair Campbell and Lance Price from inside Downing street, the criticisms of the Government by Sir Christopher Meyer and General Sir Mike Jackson, and the memoirs of Sir Hilary Synnott, from which I have already read a considerable extract.
All of these accounts have come out, and in recent weeks it has been ordered that Cabinet minutes must be published, and an early draft of the so-called dossier on weapons of mass destruction has been forced out of the Government. With such a plethora of bits and pieces of information, and so many personal accounts, coming to light, would it not be better for the Government and for all who wish to learn from these events if what happened were considered properly, completely and in the round, with conclusions based on all the necessary information rather than on the parts that individuals have chosen or managed to publish?
The former Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, was able to say on BBC television nine days ago:
“We probably hadn’t thought through the magnitude of what we were taking on…we were pushing our own side to be prepared, but I don’t think any of us really thought through this much bigger question of what we were dealing with”.
What harm could it do to this country for the points that he was making to be properly analysed and understood? Such views are a welcome contribution to our understanding of events, but they are no substitute for an inquiry with real power and purpose.
The right hon. Gentleman asks what harm it could do to this country. I can tell him quite plainly that it would not only debilitate our armed services—[Interruption.] I would appreciate it if the House would listen to what I have to say. It would not only debilitate our armed services but give great comfort and encouragement to al-Qaeda elements in the country, which would give them inducement to carry on their bloody trade even more vigorously than they have done to date. That is the harm that could be done.
I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman about that. I do not think that we should shy away from the proper functioning of democracy on the ground that it might encourage our opponents. An inquiry of this kind is part of the proper functioning of democracy.
An odd argument has been made by the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook) about an inquiry undermining our troops and our security efforts. If that were the case, why was there an inquiry into Bloody Sunday while British troops were still serving in Northern Ireland? That inquiry was supported by Labour and Conservative Members.
I agree with the general point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Of course, the same argument could have been made about the Dardanelles commission in the first world war, or, if we go back even further, about the inquiry that this House argued for, and voted for, on the Crimean war. The same argument can be made in all such circumstances as far back in history as we wish to go.
Does my right hon. Friend accept that, when James Baker and the other wise men carried out their inquiry on behalf of the American Government, no one suggested that it would harm American troops? Given that there was acceptance on that, surely it is logical that the inquiry that we are proposing would not harm our own troops.
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. There have been far more searching investigations and discussions in the US Congress—and, indeed, in the Iraq study group, as far as we can see—about the nature of the United States’ involvement in Iraq than anything that we have seen in this country. Indeed, there are far more regular reports to Congress—General Petraeus is about to testify to Congress again—than anything that we see here. This is a separate point that the Government should attend to. There should be regular quarterly reports about progress in any theatre of war.
I am listening very carefully, but it seems as if the right hon. Gentleman and his party were not in the House when we debated going to war in Iraq. I voted for that war and I still believe that it was the right decision at that time. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that in any ensuing inquiry, the Opposition’s role in this country’s democracy should be taken into consideration, particularly when, according to what we are hearing, the Conservative party somehow stumbled into voting for the war?
I think that that question has already been raised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I may have to cut down on interventions in the next few minutes. The hon. Gentleman is simply raising the same point as was put forward by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey. If those carrying out the inquiry—in whatever form it takes—want to see the paperwork relating to the deliberations of the Opposition parties, those parties should be entirely amenable to that happening. We should approach it in that spirit. What is being proposed here is not a trial or an impeachment, but an effort to learn for the future. It is a vital national process and it is an important issue for this country, irrespective of whether we voted for or against the war in Iraq.
Let me continue for a few moments.
A further aspect of the passage of time to which I referred is the fact that the need to learn from what has happened is serious and urgent. None of us can know at what stage in the future a British Government might feel compelled to say to Parliament and public that military action of some kind is necessary against a potential adversary. We just cannot know, but what we do know is that unless the country has been shown that all possible lessons have been learned, the credibility of any Government in that situation would be in severe doubt. And for good reason, since it would be entirely possible that lessons had not been learned because no searching examination of the past had taken place. We cannot proceed blithely into the future without understanding what has happened in the past.
When asked about an inquiry towards the end of last year, the Foreign Secretary said:
“I am obsessed with the next five years in Iraq, not the last five years in Iraq.”
Of course the future success of Iraq in the political, economic and security fields is the most important issue of all in these matters, but whoever heard of making a success of the future without understanding the errors of the past? Do we not all avidly read the memoirs and diaries that I mentioned for clues as to the correct policy in the future? Are we not engaged in a conflict of major proportions in Afghanistan where, for all we know, important lessons about Government machinery, military planning and the occupation of an unfamiliar country might actually be useful sooner rather than later?
I happen to have opposed the war on the grounds that insufficient thought had been given at the time to what might happen if we won militarily. My right hon. Friend might be relieved to know, however, that I agree with him entirely on the purpose of having an inquiry now, not least because we are in danger of losing the peace in Afghanistan where our troops are in conflict. I declare that I have a son who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and that one of the biggest problems facing our armed forces today is the lack of transposition of the knowledge that we gained in Iraq to the circumstances of trying to secure the peace in Afghanistan—[Interruption.]
My hon. Friend makes a personal and a political point in support of my case, for which I am grateful. I heard a sedentary intervention on the Government side a few moments ago to the effect that Afghanistan and Iraq are completely different cases; however, not only has my hon. Friend pointed out some parallels, but a similar argument was made by Sir Hilary Synnott, who was the man in charge of southern Iraq.
It is disturbing that, although there is a rhetorical consensus about the need for an inquiry at some point, the Government’s body language still shows an unwillingness to inform the future by studying the past. When my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) asked the Foreign Office last November how many studies into the consequences of the Iraq war it had started or completed and what lessons had been learned by the Department, the reply came back:
“No study of this type has been carried out”.—[Official Report, 19 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 562W.]
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Not at the moment.
Similarly, in response to the same question, the Department for International Development responded:
“There has been no formal or specific study into the consequences for DFID of the conflict in Iraq.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 931W.]
Whatever lessons the Government thought they had learned—on the basis of not having conducted any studies so far—were presumably passed on in their evidence to the Iraq study group, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) mentioned. That inquiry was commissioned by the United States Government and Congress, but the evidence, although given to the American commission, has never been disclosed to the British Parliament. Nevertheless, despite the passage of years, the publication of incomplete accounts and the threats of an uncertain future, Ministers maintain their position that an inquiry cannot yet be commenced.
I will not give way for the moment.
I expect the Foreign Secretary will advance that argument again, but I see from the Government’s amendment that they have at least dropped the argument that they advanced last summer that an inquiry was not necessary at an early date because four separate inquiries had already been held. Given that one of them was the investigation into the death of Dr. David Kelly and another was the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which complained vociferously about the lack of Government co-operation with the Committee’s proceedings, that was never a very convincing argument.
The Government’s remaining argument is that, in the words of the Prime Minister’s letter to the Fabian Society, it is
“vital that the Government does not divert attention from supporting Iraq’s development as a secure and stable country.”
That is the Government’s crucial argument, as expressed by the Prime Minister himself, so it merits some examination. First, let us be clear that the idea that Iraqi politicians will be unable to proceed with measures of reconciliation, that the Iraqi economy will suffer, or that the stability of the country will be endangered because we are conducting an inquiry in Whitehall is ludicrous.
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman before the end of my speech.
Of course it is true that there are still senior officials in the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development who are closely concerned with Iraqi affairs, but being busy cannot possibly provide an argument for indefinitely postponing something that has become so essential. Presumably, when they are no longer dealing with Iraq there will be no shortage of other things for them to do. If we are to wait until those Departments have arrived at a benign and settled time when their senior officials can be troubled with the distraction of an inquiry, such a thing will never take place at all.
If it is true that, as the Prime Minister also said in his letter,
“the whole effort of the…armed forces is directed towards supporting the people and Government of Iraq”,
is it not of paramount importance for that effort to be based on a better understanding of past events? The commission that inquired into the Dardanelles campaign was set up in 1916 and reported in 1917, on the recommendation of Asquith, the Prime Minister of the time, who could no doubt have argued that the whole effort of the Government and the armed forces was devoted to winning the first world war. Of course their effort was devoted to winning the first world war, but our predecessors at that time reached the view that they might be better at winning the war, and any other war, if they understood as soon as possible where things had gone wrong.
“Ah,” the Government have said in the past, “this may all be true, but we still have members of our armed forces in Iraq, and we would be letting them down or undermining their morale if an inquiry were commenced while they were there.” The implications of that argument are, of course, disturbing, as for all we know some British force may be employed in Iraq for a considerable time to come, and it would follow from the Government’s argument that no inquiry is remotely on the horizon.
It should also be pointed out that that has, in any case, always been a weak argument. The largest Army garrison in Britain—in Catterick—is in my constituency, and I am glad to say that it is often visited by the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook). I often speak to soldiers and senior officers who have returned from Iraq, and the notion that their morale would be in any way undermined by our commencing an inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war is one that most of them would consider truly laughable. The morale of those wonderful people is made of far sturdier stuff than that. It depends on their training, their colleagues, their leadership and their equipment. Far from their being undermined by an inquiry, there are few who would not welcome it, for they above all others want to know that all of us politicians have learned from mistakes for which some of their colleagues paid with their lives.
Furthermore, the Government cannot claim simultaneously that the role of our armed forces in Iraq has been much reduced and circumscribed, and that the military situation is so critical that no inquiry can be commenced. On 16 December, the Foreign Secretary said,
“our role from now is going to be a supporting role because it's Iraqis in the lead in security, Iraqis in the lead in politics.”
In October, the Prime Minister told the House,
“in the spring of next year”
—that is now—
“…we plan to move to a second stage of overwatch where the coalition would maintain a more limited re-intervention capacity and where the main focus will be on training and mentoring.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2008; Vol. 464, c. 23.]
Is a process of training and mentoring, or even of overwatch, in 2008 going to be disrupted or damaged by the holding of an inquiry that would surely concentrate on the events of 2002, 2003 and 2004?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I take on board his point that this issue is about the past as well as the future. Does he regret supporting the Government’s decision to go to war in Iraq?
We have also discussed that many times. I do not regret my decision, but other Members who voted the same way as I did will regret their decision; some of them have spoken out about that. However, I believe that all of us, regardless of whether we voted for or against that decision, should be able to join together in being willing to learn from what has happened, because none of us thinks that everything went according to plan. That should be the united basis on which this House approaches an inquiry, as it was in the first world war example I have referred to, and which provides a lesson for us to draw on.
There is another strong reason in the national interest why there should be an inquiry now. Given that there will be a new President in the White House as of January and given that one of the perceptions of our decision to join with the Americans is that we were their poodle, it is important that our Government and the people of Britain understand the implications of that decision so that in future we get a foreign policy that is more balanced and that does not look so subservient.
In advancing that argument, the hon. Gentleman might start to fracture the possible coalition in all parts of the House in support of an inquiry. I shall not therefore go down that road with him, but let me at least say that that is clearly an argument that can be put in favour of an inquiry.
Since the current Prime Minister took office, the Government have announced at least 50 separate reviews of different areas of policy, all presumably designed better to inform future policy making. They cover a vast range of subjects, from casinos to 24-hour drinking to the promotion of tourism and to sunbeds. [Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary may not be aware of it, but the Government are having a review of sunbeds. Many of these reviews are in the military area, such as the review of support for the armed forces, the armed personnel review and the review of the role of the military. It defies credibility that there should be time and resources to review a vast range of subjects, including many in the field of defence, but that any review or inquiry into probably the most important events of the decade is too much of a distraction from the matters in hand.
Finally, among the Government’s arguments against an inquiry last year was that it would give the impression of division or weakness to the enemy; the hon. Member for Stockton, North has made that point. However, since when, in any mature democracy, have considered debate, searching inquiry and the establishment of truth been a sign of weakness—even in more dramatic moments in our history? Did our predecessors shy away from debating Norway in 1940 in case Hitler was emboldened?
The truth is that the case for commencing an inquiry of the type, or of a similar type, to the one we are calling for today has become overwhelming. That has been well illustrated by the work of the Fabian Society and the debates in the House of Lords where former Foreign Secretaries of all political persuasions have put the case for an inquiry to begin.
If Ministers continue to argue against that, they will be increasingly isolated voices, holding out against a preponderance of national opinion, which embraces every other party and many members of their own. They may be unwilling to embark on something which would, of course, add to the duties of some of them, but they should not shirk this task because it seems unpleasant, and they should remember that if this inquiry is not established by this Administration, it most surely will be by the next one. They may be unwilling to act at the behest of the Conservative party, or of the Liberal Democrats, or even of the Fabian Society, but if so, they should go away from this debate and come back in a short time with their own considered proposals. Not to do so would be an error of policy, as well as of politics; and not to do so would be to frustrate the wishes not of any one party in this House, but of the British people as a whole.
I beg to move, To leave out from ‘House’ to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
‘notes the Resolutions of this House of 31st October 2006 and 11th June 2007 on an Iraq inquiry; recognises that this House has already twice voted against holding an inquiry at these times; further recognises that a time will come when an inquiry is appropriate; but declines to make a proposal for a further inquiry at this time, whilst important operations are underway in Iraq to support the people and government of Iraq.’.
The amendment stands in the name of the Prime Minister, and that of myself and my colleagues. I must notify the House that a long-standing official engagement means that I shall not be present for the wind-ups.
I start on two points on which I believe there is agreement across the House. First, whether we voted for the Iraq war or against it, we all recognise that the continued bravery, dedication and professionalism of our armed forces and our civilian staff operating in Iraq is second to none. All of us have constituents whose sons and daughters, husbands and wives have served, or are serving, in Iraq. Some of us have constituents whose loved ones have died there. None of us—on any side of the debate—has anything but admiration for and pride in the selfless way in which those people have gone about their task, and nothing that I say today will impugn the motives or motivations of speakers or hon. Members, however they vote.
Secondly, there is agreement across the House that an inquiry into the Iraq war will be necessary. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) set out the reasons for that well, and I do not need to rehearse them. He was also generous enough to say that the Government have been consistent on this issue since October 2006. The dispute between us concerns not substance, but timing. The Opposition have said that the time for such an inquiry is now—on the GMTV programme this morning he said, “Now is the right time”. Given today’s reports from Basra, most people would see that as a bizarre choice of priority. We say, as the Prime Minister has said, that
“the right time to look at these issues and review the lessons learned is when our troops have finished the work in Iraq”.—[Official Report, 19 March 2008; Vol. 473, c. 932.]
The British Government’s view is that now is not the right time, but why have the Americans been prepared to carry out their own inquiries in previous years since the beginning of the war? Why has the time been right for the Americans when they have held inquiries but now is not the right time for the British?
That relates to the burden of my speech; it is contained in our amendment, which refers to the “important operations” that our troops are doing in theatre. I want to go through each of the arguments carefully. They relate to precedent and the learning of lessons, both of which I shall address, and the condition of our troops on the ground.
Does the Foreign Secretary not accept that his argument is absurd? If we do not have an inquiry now, we will never have one while any conflict is going on because there will never be a good time to do so, as others have pointed out. Perhaps he could take a lesson from across the Atlantic. Not only has the United States held inquiries, but both of its Houses have debated and voted for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and the troops remain there only through the presidential veto. Cannot we learn a lesson from that side of the Atlantic too?
Some 60 debates on the Iraq issue have taken place in this House. It is proper and right that any hon. Member, or group of hon. Members, can table a motion arguing for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq now and Parliament would have the right to vote on that issue.
A few moments ago, the Foreign Secretary argued that the conflict in Basra is a good argument against an inquiry. I am sure that he has read the recent interview given by Jonathan Powell, the former chief of staff to the Government, who makes it clear that the Government in no way planned for or understood the possibility of a sectarian conflict or internal civil war being likely to break out in Iraq if a war took place. Is that not precisely why we need to have an inquiry? Today’s events in Basra demonstrate the inadequacy of the Government’s preparation for one of the worst conflicts for which this or any British Government have been responsible in the past 100 years.
The events demonstrate a wide range of issues, not least the role of the Iraqi security forces and police in disbanding and attacking some of the Iraqi militia—the Shi’a militia—in the south of Iraq. I shall argue and explain in my speech why the situation in Basra precisely does not call for the sort of inquiry that has been mentioned. Our rationale was simple and it was set out clearly in the debate in the House on 31 October, to which the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks referred. This is what was said at the time:
“important operations are under way in Iraq. Major political decisions in Iraq and efforts to contain the insurgency appear to be in the balance. The Baker commission is expected to report in the next few months. Any inquiry should be able to examine what happens in the coming months”—
that point was made earlier—
“as well as the events of recent years. To begin an inquiry now would therefore be premature”.
Those powerful words encapsulate the heart of our case. What is peculiar is that they were not uttered by a Government Minister. Instead, they are the words of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks in that debate, who provided a catalogue of reasons against an immediate inquiry.
Let us go through those reasons carefully. Eighteen months on, the Baker commission has reported but every other count set out not by me, but by the right hon. Gentleman in October 2006 applies now. The right hon. Gentleman argued against an inquiry in October 2006 because
“important operations are under way in Iraq.”
That was his argument, not mine. [Interruption.] It is his argument and mine. The same is the case today. About 4,000 British troops are providing vital functions to monitor, mentor and train Iraqi security forces, to provide key support to those forces, to support border security on the Iran-Iraq border and to provide a quick reaction force at high readiness.
The right hon. Gentleman also argued against an inquiry because:
“Major political decisions…and efforts to contain the insurgency appear to be in the balance.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2006; Vol. 451, c. 183.]
So they are today; it is his argument and mine. One has only to switch on the TV to see it. I shall come back to this later and explain current developments but there are clearly clashes between the Iraqi security force and militia groups, never mind important developments on the political front. The Iraqi Government are deliberating on a new election law and a hydrocarbons law, as well as revenue-sharing laws that will benefit all Iraqis. The myriad Iraqi political parties that have emerged since 2003 are working through the implications of their 4 December commitments to constitutional reform. [Interruption.] Some hon. Members say that that is not relevant, but it is relevant because it is the exact reason given against an immediate inquiry by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks in 2006. In fact, he concluded by saying that an inquiry would be “premature” because of those grounds. If that argument was good enough for him then, it should be good enough for him now.
The events in Basra today, where the Iraqi army is trying to address the militias and, to a degree, the police force, which is wholly infested by the militias, are a direct consequence of the failure of British policy. That policy was made evident to the Select Committee on Defence in 2004 when we were shown the Iraqi police being trained by the British. That has a direct read-across to what our troops are doing in Afghanistan, where the lessons from Iraq are directly applicable to the failure to establish a police force that is not corrupt. What is happening in Basra today will happen in Afghanistan tomorrow if we do not learn the lessons.
As I shall show in the course of my remarks, the Ministry of Defence has published two studies of the lessons to be learned and has conducted numerous internal studies, too, which are informing the work that is going on.
For the record I want to say that my party, of course, called for an inquiry at a time considerably before the Conservatives did. Will the Foreign Secretary explain the position? Is he saying that there will be no inquiry while British forces remain in theatre? If that is the case, we still have troops in the Falklands, in Cyprus and in Bosnia. Is not the reality that the Baker commission in the US led to the appointment of General Petraeus and a change in policy by the US military that, to its credit, is starting to see some good effects? Could not that happen to our forces, too?
The hon. Gentleman referred to the Falklands—the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks called it a model inquiry—but we should remember that the Falklands inquiry was established at the end of the Falklands conflict. I do not think that the point made by the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) in respect of the Falklands is—
Rather than taking the easy tack and looking at the inconsistency of the Conservative position, will the Foreign Secretary look at the substance of the case for an inquiry? Rather than talking about the operations, which we all know about, will he say why those operations would hinder an inquiry?
I shall address that directly. Essentially, we think that the priority of Government and our armed services should be the situation in Iraq, not the servicing of an inquiry.
What the House hopes to hear is why an argument that might have been premature 18 months ago has not matured now. We want to know, for example, whether the then Prime Minister put decisions in writing in the way in which Winston Churchill instructed his Secretary of State to do in 1941. Meetings were to be minuted and decisions confirmed in writing. Those are the kinds of things that will get lost as we get further away from the time when the war started, year by year. The House, the country and our troops deserve better than that.
There have been four arguments made for an inquiry and I want to go through them one by one, but the very case that the hon. Member makes—that he wants to know whether decisions were given in writing or orally—shows that this has nothing to do with the learning of lessons that are appropriate for the lives and welfare of our troops on the ground today.
The one group of people whose views on this issue have not been mentioned in the first hour of this debate is the Iraqi people. The motion talks about “all matters relevant thereto”, which would presumably include the internal workings of the present democratic Government in Iraq. Can my right hon. Friend tell the House whether the Iraqi Government have been pressing him for an early inquiry?
That is a good point and one that we had not thought of circulating in the briefing. We have not been pressed by the Iraqi Government, who have more important things on their mind.
The judgment about the right time hinges on four points, and I shall address each in turn. The first is precedent. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks mentioned the situation in July 1916, when Prime Minister Asquith set up an inquiry not into the origins and conduct of the ongoing first world war, but into the time-limited, finished and ill-fated Dardanelle expedition of 1915 and, for the sake of accuracy, into the Anglo-Indian campaign in Mesopotamia in spring 1916. That point was brought out in the debate on 31 October 2006 by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who at the time was not my hon. Friend. He showed that the Dardanelle example did not actually speak to the case that the right hon. Gentleman seeks to prosecute. In fact, the campaign was over before the inquiry was set up—
A case could just be made by the Foreign Secretary about the Dardanelles, but he glided carefully over the example of the campaign in Mesopotamia—which we otherwise know as Iraq. That inquiry was set up specifically to learn military operational lessons in an ongoing campaign, which had brought disaster to the British at Qut al Amara. It was going on at the time, and lessons were learned. That example proves our case.
It is a good thing that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks did not mention the Mesopotamia campaign in the prosecution of his case. In fact, it was the Dardanelles campaign that he mentioned.
The right hon. Gentleman did mention the famous Norway debate in 1940, but it is known as the Norway debate, not the Norway inquiry, for a very simple reason—it was a debate about Norway, not an inquiry into the Norway campaign. There was no inquiry into the Korean war, Suez, the first Gulf war or the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. The Franks inquiry was set up after the end of the Falklands conflict. The right hon. Gentleman said in his speech that we should model—not my word, his—any inquiry on the Franks inquiry. In fact, the Franks inquiry was set up only after all the troops had come home from the Falklands. I do not therefore believe that the case has been made.
The whole of the Foreign Secretary’s argument seems to rest on what will be perceived outside this Chamber as the absurd premise that a group of 4,000 people with an overwatch role will somehow have their morale undermined if we commence an investigation to clear up the huge number of concerns that remain about the war. Is that really what his argument rests on? If not, will he finally get round to telling us what his argument is?
I have never mentioned the word “morale”. I do not think that the morale argument is a very strong one and the hon. Gentleman will not hear it from me.
The second argument is that following Basra’s transition to provincial Iraqi control in December, our military role in Iraq is now so limited—the right hon. Gentleman used the rather dismissive word “diminished”— that an inquiry could safely be held without prejudice to the position of our servicemen and women in Iraq. That argument does not accord with the reality of our ongoing commitments in southern Iraq.
Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
No; I am just going to make this point, then I shall let hon. Members come in.
British forces still have an important role to play in monitoring, mentoring and training the Iraqi security force in southern Iraq. Our forces support the Iraqi security force in active operations such as countering smuggling on the Shatt al-Arab waterway and at the Iranian border, including by supporting, training and developing the Iraqi department of border enforcement.
When necessary, and at the request of Iraqi authorities, we provide Iraqi-led operations with advanced capabilities that the Iraqi security forces do not possess. That was what we did in January when the ISF were faced with a series of pre-planned attacks in both Basra and An Nasiriyah by a fundamentalist sect during the Ashura festival.
Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
I shall give way at the end of this section of my speech.
UK forces were in close contact with the Iraqi security forces, and provided fast air support and aerial surveillance capabilities in support of ISF operations. Those capabilities were crucial in enabling the Iraqi security forces to deal with the situation as effectively as they did.
We also retain the capacity to deploy ground forces in support of the Iraqi security forces, at Iraqi request and in line with the terms of the memorandum that was signed in December. The dangers and difficulties of that role are shown by the continued efforts of small numbers of extremists to target our forces. It is not tenable to make the second argument: that our armed forces are no longer devoting significant attention to the future of Iraq, and so have time on their hands for all the demands of an inquiry.
The hon. Gentleman has been trying to get in; I am happy to let him.
The Foreign Secretary says that Iraq is an ongoing situation. Is he saying, therefore, that the President of the United States was wrong when he said, “Mission accomplished”?
I think it is evident that the mission has not been accomplished. I associate myself entirely with something that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, said earlier—I do not know whether he was quoting what I said last week. It seems clear that the war itself went better than most people expected, but that the building of the peace afterwards has gone much worse than people expected. That is the basic truth, and we might as well all accept it. The mission has not yet been accomplished.
On the previous point, I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) completely demolished the Foreign Secretary’s argument.
Will the Foreign Secretary explain to the House why the Prime Minister promised a reduction in the number of troops in Iraq to 2,500 by next summer? It is now becoming evident that that is not going to be delivered, and 4,000 looks like the minimum. Is that not a further argument for an inquiry? Some of the mistakes that the Government made soon after the invasion seem to be being repeated.
The Prime Minister’s promises were made on the basis of military advice. He promised a downward trend in troop numbers, which remains the case. All further decisions will also be based on military advice, and I think I would discount the numbers that the hon. Gentleman is chucking around.
The Foreign Secretary’s argument is predicated, in truth, almost entirely on the fact that it would be militarily deleterious for an inquiry to be held now. Will he tell us which senior commanders of the British armed forces, present or past, have told him or said that such an inquiry would be harmful?
The same question was asked in a previous debate, and the answer was, “None.” That is not the basis of the case. I am asking people to make a judgment of the four reasons that have been given. The first is the precedent, and the second is the so-called diminished role that we are playing.
I do not understand the Foreign Secretary’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie). He has described clearly the role being carried out by the 4,000 people still in Basra. He said that it is not their morale that he is worried about. What is the argument that an inquiry into the origins of and planning for the war will disrupt the continuing role in Basra? It sounds as though the Foreign Secretary is just saying, “They wouldn’t have the time.” The people involved in Basra at the moment, however, are highly unlikely to be required for the sort of inquiry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) has been arguing for.
The argument is straightforward: that the focus, attention and priority of armed services and diplomats should be on the job at hand, not on the service of an inquiry.
The third argument for an inquiry has to do with the lessons learned for the benefits of future policy. It is that an early inquiry can help us learn lessons that will contribute to the future success of efforts in Iraq. However, our military, diplomatic and development strategies have consistently been adjusted and updated in the light of events on the ground in Iraq and the lessons that have been learned.
As I said earlier, in 2003 the Ministry of Defence published two studies about the operations in Iraq. Since then, it has conducted a series of internal reviews and studies concerning various stages of the operation. They apply across the complex range of issues raised by the Iraq conflict—from military kit to counter-insurgency strategy, from the relationship of security to economic and political change. More broadly, we have long recognised the importance of learning systemic lessons about the conduct of post-stabilisation operations— a point that was made earlier in relation to Afghanistan.
The final argument is that, if an inquiry is not held soon, memories will fade, records will be lost and the passage of time will render it impossible to conduct an effective and detailed examination. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks said last week:
“As we reach the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq it is becoming imperative to begin an inquiry before memories have faded, e-mails have been deleted and documents have disappeared.”
The Foreign Secretary spoke about lessons learned, but 15 years or more ago a very expensive course—the higher command and staff course—was set up at the Joint Forces Staff college. It studied campaign planning, and many of the senior officers and civil servants who tried to make decisions about the invasion of Iraq had been on it. I know that they looked carefully at a module covering the Marshall plan, and at what would happen after the fighting finished. Why was their advice ignored, and should we not inquire into the matter?
I shall be happy to look into that, and to ask my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces to address the point about the module. However, the hon. Gentleman and I agree that there are significant lessons to be learned, both in-theatre and about decision making. What divides us is when there should be an official inquiry—and the motion calls for a Privy Council inquiry—into the Iraq war. Should we hold one now, or when our troops have finished their work? I put it to the hon. Gentleman that it is more sensible to hold it when our troops have finished their work.
The Foreign Secretary has gone into some detail about the internal inquiries conducted by the Ministry of Defence. There is no dispute about them, but will he explain why the Foreign Office has not undertaken any inquiry? I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the written answer that I received from the Minister for the Middle East on 19 November 2007.
The wisdom of all Foreign Office officials is of course used to inform the development of policy. Those officials include existing ambassadors who have moved out of Iraq, as well as those who have retired. The policy of the Foreign Office is not the same as it was in 2002 or 2003, but the failure to establish an official inquiry is not a consequence of that.
I want to say more about the fourth and final argument for an inquiry, which is that memories will fade and that e-mails will be deleted. Frankly, that is the weakest part of the case for an inquiry. Since 2003, there have been four separate inquiries into different aspects of the decision to invade Iraq and associated events, and they are not going to go away. In the same period, there have been 60 parliamentary debates on the matter. As the depth of interest in the fifth anniversary of military action shows, events and decisions related to Iraq are still being analysed and debated in minute detail. I do not see any risk that interest will fade before the time is right for an inquiry.
I am afraid that the Foreign Secretary has just holed himself below the waterline. He has told the House there have been four inquiries, and that used to be the Government’s argument for not holding an official inquiry. Will he tell the House how the Government were able to hold the four inquiries about which they now boast without harming operations in Iraq?
The argument against the Government was that those inquiries were narrow and limited. I shall go through them: they include the inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly—the so-called Hutton inquiry—and the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry for which the hon. Members who compiled it claimed to have received insufficient help. Both were specific and narrow, but the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks made it clear that the inquiry proposed in the motion would have no limit on what it would be able to look at. A Privy Council inquiry of the sort that is being proposed is of a different order from those that have been conducted so far. The inquiries that have been conducted so far, including the Butler inquiry on the use of intelligence, were discrete and narrow in their terms of reference and in what they were investigating.
Before my right hon. Friend moves on from the point about memories fading, many in this House remember well the events leading up to actions five years ago, and we remember well the Conservative party’s view on the issues. Is he not being patient in his speech, given that we know why we are debating the subject today? The debate is a cynical move by the Conservative party to reposition itself on Iraq for narrow, party political advantage.
I am glad to have my hon. Friend’s support, and I think that there is rather a lot of agreement, certainly among those on the Liberal Benches, with what he says about the official Opposition’s motivation on the issue.
The Opposition’s position on the four inquiries may indeed have been that the terms of reference were so limited that a wider inquiry was needed, but does the Foreign Secretary not recall that the Government’s position, repeated time and again by Members on the Government Benches, was that it was precisely because the inquiries’ terms of reference were so wide-ranging and comprehensive that no further inquiry was needed?
There is absolutely no comparison between the Privy Council inquiry advocated by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, which would cover every aspect of not just Government policy but, as we learned today, Opposition policy, and the Butler inquiry on the use of intelligence or the Hutton inquiry on the death of Dr. David Kelly. Those were of a different order from the Privy Council inquiry, with no limits, that is being proposed today.
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
In a moment; let me make some progress. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, majored on this point, but it is not credible to argue on the basis of the risk of interest fading, of records being lost, or of e-mails going missing. That cannot conceivably be the basis for arguing for an inquiry now, rather than when our troops have come home. That seems to me to be the fourth and final weakness of the case that he makes.
My right hon. Friend mentions the Butler committee’s inquiry, but how can the House have confidence in that inquiry, or indeed that of the Intelligence and Security Committee, when one member of both committees—a former Member of the House, Ann Taylor—was involved in the preparation of the dossier? We know that from an e-mail to Jonathan Powell, among others, that begins:
“Ann Taylor read the draft dossier this morning and passed on some detailed comments to John Scarlett. She has just rung me to underline the following points.”
There then follow various points. A Member of the House was involved in drawing up the dossier, was then appointed a member of the Butler committee, and was Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee; how can we have confidence in those procedures?
I have never heard the credibility or the good sense of the Butler inquiry called into question. I think that all of us who have read that study believe that it did a very serious job, without fear or favour. It interrogated all the relevant people, it looked into all the issues, and it had full access to papers. It came up with a clear set of recommendations that no one would say were comfortable for the Prime Minister and the Government of the time.
What the Butler saw was as little as possible.
My hon. Friend says, from a sedentary position, something about what the Butler saw; I think that the Butler saw pretty much everything in this case. I am surprised to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) cast doubt on the credibility of the Butler inquiry.
Is it about the Butler inquiry?
The Foreign Secretary said earlier that it was not the morale of troops in Basra that was of concern to him, but the fact that senior Ministers and diplomats would be distracted from the priorities of dealing with the ongoing situation in Iraq. He knows perfectly well that not a single senior Minister, ambassador or senior civil servant who was responsible for Iraq five years ago currently has responsibilities for Iraq, so how can that possibly be an argument in favour of his position?
First of all, for the record, I would never say that the morale of troops was not of concern. My argument was that I would not advance the case against an inquiry on the basis of the morale of the troops. Secondly, in respect of the work that would be required across the armed forces, which I mentioned, and the diplomatic service, it is not only the senior Ministers to whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred but the whole machine that will have to service the inquiry and ensure, in a diligent way, that the issues are addressed. That is the issue at hand. That is the argument for holding an inquiry when we could hold one, when all our troops have come home.
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he has not yet had a chance to speak, but then I want to conclude.
The Foreign Secretary has spoken about the wide-ranging nature of the Butler inquiry and the inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee. He knows that the previous Prime Minister admitted at the Dispatch Box that he did not know that weapons of mass destruction, which he was going to destroy, were in fact defensive weapons. We went to war without the Prime Minister knowing exactly what the threat was. How could that possibly happen? The Prime Minister did not know—he was not briefed—yet those questions were not posed by either the Butler inquiry or the ISC inquiry.
We have had 60 debates, many of which have focused on that and other relevant issues. However, that does not seem to be relevant to the issue that we are debating.
On due grounds, I shall give way to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). I hope that the hon. Member for Hereford understands.
I have listened carefully to the Foreign Secretary’s speech. Does he understand that the impression that he is giving is less a concern about the effectiveness of British operations in Basra and much more a determination to try to protect the Government from embarrassment in relation to the decision to go to war?
With all due respect, I believe that the right hon. and learned Gentleman thought of that line before the debate began.
Given the events in Basra, it is important that I update the House on our understanding of the clashes that have taken place. In the hour between oral questions and the debate, I have spoken to our acting consul general in Basra and to our ambassador in Baghdad, and I should update the House on that, because it is relevant to this issue. Over the past two days, the Iraqi Government have launched a new phase in their efforts to assert full authority over Basra. On Monday, Prime Minister Maliki broadcast a message to the people of Basra, emphasising that the Iraqi state was responsible for security.
Order. I may have anticipated the point of order the hon. Gentleman was about to raise. The Foreign Secretary should be careful on this matter. If he seeks to insert in his speech a statement about a situation that would ordinarily be subject to questioning, that ought to be done in a specific way. It is not normally accepted procedure to combine a statement of information to the House with a speech in an Opposition day debate.
I am certainly not going to argue with the Deputy Speaker, or trespass on the conventions of the House. I think it is relevant, however, to our debate that the centrepiece of the Government’s—
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I suggest to the Foreign Secretary that he make that statement on the completion of our debate tonight, when he will have more information to present to the House?
I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a matter on which the Chair can pronounce. I have suggested that the Foreign Secretary follow the normal way of proceeding in cases of this kind. It is up to the Government to decide how they deal with that.
Let me conclude, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by addressing the finely balanced position that continues to exist in Iraq, and which the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks himself argued in 2006 militated against an inquiry.
In the past year, there have been significant improvements in the security situation in Baghdad, as the right hon. Gentleman said. That is a reflection of various factors, not least the growing capability of the Iraqi security forces and the rejection by many Iraqis, particularly Sunnis of western Iraq, of al-Qaeda. However, it is also clear that to sustain that progress, Iraqis themselves need to use the opportunities provided by improved security to take forward the political reconciliation process. It is important, too, to use the breathing space provided by improved security to progress broader reconciliation at the local level, which is directly relevant to the position of our troops and the training of the Iraqi security forces in southern Iraq.
In Basra, real progress had been made by General Mohan, head of Basra operations command, and by General Jalil, Basra police director, in developing ISF capability since their appointment last summer. On the economic front, the Prime Minister’s announcement on 8 October of a Basra development commission has been taken forward, and meanwhile, hundreds of corrupt or militia-affiliated police officers have been dismissed by General Jalil. The sovereign decisions of the Government of Iraq in respect of the Iraqi security forces and their work with our troops in southern Iraq reflect the progress that has been achieved since provincial Iraqi control in Basra.
We have commitments to the Iraqi people, rooted in UN resolutions. We are continuing to devote substantial diplomatic, development and military resources to honouring those commitments, against a background of promising but still fragile progress. In that context, all the efforts—
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
No. All the efforts of our most senior people, from soldiers to diplomats, need to be focused on creating the best possible future for Iraq, not on concentrating on the past. That is what the Government will be doing. I believe that is what the House should be doing as well. Let us have an inquiry, but when our troops are safe. I urge support for the Government amendment.
I begin by associating my right hon. and hon. Friends with the initial comments of the Foreign Secretary about the bravery and dedication of British servicemen and women. Whatever our differences on the war or the inquiry, at least we can all agree on our joint pride in our armed forces.
Apart from those comments, however, I am afraid that the Foreign Secretary’s speech was totally unconvincing. Although I enjoyed his exploitation of the inconsistencies of the Conservative position, his argument on the substance was pitifully weak. The case for an inquiry into the Iraq war is overwhelming, and the case for it to be held now is at least as strong. One would have thought that an inquiry ought to be automatic when a decision of the magnitude of going to war goes so catastrophically wrong. To put such an inquiry off, even five years afterwards, is nothing short of a scandal. So just as the Liberal Democrats have proposed an inquiry and supported all past calls in the House for an inquiry, we will do so again tonight.
Yet in supporting the Conservative motion, we feel that it is only right to remind the public that the Conservative party still refuses to admit that it made a gross error of judgment on Iraq. If the Conservative party were to admit that tonight, my hunch is that their motion would be more likely to succeed. In past such debates, more than 40 Labour MPs who had voted against the war voted against an inquiry, partly because the Tory position looked so opportunistic. A long overdue expression of regret from those on the Conservative Benches could serve a useful parliamentary purpose and defeat the Government tonight. Judging from the speech of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), it seems that they are still believers in the war.
I can therefore appeal only to Labour MPs—those who were brave enough five years ago to vote with us against the Iraq war. Yes, the Conservatives may be playing politics with the issue. Yes, I can understand that those Labour Members do not want to be seen to play games with the Tories. But surely the logic of their opposition to the war means that the only rational place for them to be tonight is in the Lobby with the other 15 Labour MPs who previously voted for an inquiry.
We need an inquiry because those who took that decision, including the Conservatives, need to be held to account. We also need it because, as the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks said, we need to be sure that the lessons are learned for Afghanistan and all future conflicts, and for the work of the intelligence services.
Has not the hon. Gentleman given his game away by asking for hon. Members to be made to give account of themselves? Surely this is wider than a party political debate. Of course, I should be interested to know what happened with the Government, with my own party and with his party in the discussions, but this is a matter for the country. It is not for the Liberal Democrats to try to use it as their little toy.
That is rather rich, coming from the Conservative Benches. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on one thing—the debate goes wider than party politics. That is what we have argued for many years.
The Government position used to be to oppose an inquiry completely, claiming that four inquiries had already been held. When I intervened on the Foreign Secretary tonight, we heard a volte face from the previous Government position. His argument tonight destroyed the argument that they made in the past, which we always thought was threadbare. At least tonight the right hon. Gentleman had the decency to admit the fiction.
Early this week, it seemed refreshing when we appeared to get a promise from the Prime Minister, repeated in the Government’s amendment tonight, that the Government were no longer against an inquiry in principle. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary said that again today. It seems that the only issue in this debate is the timing of that inquiry. Are the Government correct in saying that an early inquiry would be wrong and that we must wait while, as the Government amendment puts it,
“operations are underway in Iraq to support the people and government of Iraq”?
Absolutely not. The Government have got themselves into a ludicrous and untenable position. In this debate, the Foreign Secretary has never explained why the ongoing operations in Iraq are an obstacle to the inquiry. He mentioned that a few diplomats, soldiers and commanders might be needed for the inquiry. However, as I shall endeavour to show, most of the people who will need to go before the inquiry will have moved on and will not be involved in Iraq today.
If my hon. Friend speaks to senior members of Congress who were involved in the Baker review, they will tell him that Congress was able to carry out a thoughtful and full-ranging review of the US commitment in Iraq with no negative effect whatever on troops on the ground or the diplomatic service. If the Foreign Secretary is suggesting that they were put at risk by the review, he is, frankly, wrong.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will know that there have been many American investigations into a whole range of issues in Iraq—not least, many of the audit reports. There have been more than 60 audit reports on different aspects of the reconstruction. How have they got in the way of the major work going on in Iraq?
The Foreign Secretary tried to make the point that many potential participants in the inquiry may be too busy to take part in it. Is it not the case that the key witness—the most important person from whom we wish to hear—has plenty of time on his hands at the moment? In a few months’ time, however, he may be too busy as president of the European Council.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but he anticipates my speech; I shall deal with his point in a second.
The main remaining public justification for UK troops staying in Iraq is that they are there to train the Iraqi security forces—an important task that our armed forces have been doing for some time with distinction. However, does the task of training prevent an inquiry? I think not. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the Minister for the Armed Forces is saying that the troops are doing far more. However, the Iraq Commission, co-chaired by my noble Friend Lord Ashdown, made it absolutely clear that the training function was the key and critical issue during the overwatch stage. If the Minister wants to deny that, let him get to the Dispatch Box.
Furthermore, even when questioned about the action in Basra today, the British military are clear that it does not involve our forces. Action is being taken by the Iraqi armed forces and the Iraqi police, who have been trained in the past by the British security forces but who have no help from British forces today. That is the point; we are now handing over.
I know because that is what the military are telling the journalists in Iraq. The Minister ought to know that himself.
British forces are there to train the Iraqi forces, but also, if necessary, to back them up. We do not yet know what is happening in Basra.
One can only go on what the military spokesmen are saying.
Even if the limited military operations mentioned by the Foreign Secretary are ongoing, I still do not see how they would be an obstacle to an inquiry. He went on to talk about the attention and focus of our armed forces and diplomats. However, if that is the argument, our engagement in any military operation anywhere in the world—Afghanistan or elsewhere—would hinder an inquiry. The argument is palpably absurd.
I was grateful for the history lesson given by the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson); it really holed the Foreign Secretary beneath the waterline, and he failed to answer the hon. Gentleman’s point. He was also wrong in his refutation of the precedent of the Dardanelles commission of 1916-17, cited by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). That was sitting during the first world war. The actions in Gallipoli may have finished, but let us face it, our armed forces were hugely involved in northern France. The idea that because the action had happened in Gallipoli, those involved were freed up so that the inquiry could take place is absurd.
I give way to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he can come up with a better argument than that of his Front Benchers.
To compare a war that was taking place in 1917 with one that has taken place this century—in the age of the internet and of people flying around on easyJet, when propaganda can fly around the world in a split second—is to look at the whole issue totally out of context.
If I had understood the logic behind the hon. Gentleman’s argument, I would answer his intervention. However, I am afraid that the House has already shown that that point is not worth addressing.
If the House is to vote against the Government’s amendment and for the motion, it will have to try to understand more the nature of the inquiry. Who would be called? What would be the inquiry’s focus? The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks rightly said that it would focus on the run-up to the war, the invasion itself and the immediate aftermath far more than on actions going on in Basra and the southern provinces on the Iran-Iraq border in 2008.
Let us think about who would come to the inquiry—one Tony Blair comes to mind. I suggest that he is not that busy at the moment; I do not believe that he is involved with our troops in the Iraqi operations in Basra. He may be attending a few board meetings. One or two days a week, I believe, he helps to create peace in Israel-Palestine, although he has a bit of work to do on that. Nevertheless, he ought to come to the inquiry. He ought to be called now, not in a few years’ time. He is the central witness and he is available. Many of the main actors in the civil service, the armed forces or the Government have moved on from the responsibilities that they held in 2003. Even if they are still in place, they are not working in the theatre of operations, but are here in London or somewhere else in the UK. On the issue of those very few witnesses in Iraq whom the inquiry would wish to call, I cannot believe that a temporary leave of absence would bring training work or any other operations to a dramatic standstill that would somehow undermine our efforts. The argument is ludicrous.
The case for delaying the inquiry is weak, but the case for an early inquiry could not be stronger. It has been five years.
Longer than the first world war.
The hon. Gentleman anticipates me; it is longer than the first world war, and almost as long as the second world war, since the invasion. The Foreign Secretary dismissed the notion that memories could fade and recall could be hazy. He may be right; Tony Blair’s memory of what he has said to the House or his colleagues is often hazy, but it will not improve with the passage of time. Unless they have been recorded accurately, which I doubt, recollections of who said what to whom will be far less precise.
The Foreign Secretary dismissed the point about e-mails. The Government do not have a good record on archiving and management of electronic records, so I hope that he understands why the Opposition are unconvinced by that argument. I ask him, and whoever will sum up in his absence tonight, what is happening in respect of preserving the electronic and written evidence. In anticipation of the inquiry that they now support, have the Government set up people to make sure that all the evidence is available to it? I hope that there will be an answer to that. Continuing this farcical delay does the Government no credit at all.
The hon. Gentleman is, of course, right that if we are to restore public confidence in the democratic process, it is essential that we initiate an inquiry as a Parliament this side of a general election. If we are unsuccessful on this third occasion—three tries for a Welshman; the shadow Foreign Secretary is an honorary Welshman, at least—will the Liberal Democrats consider supporting the proposal made by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) that they use some of their parliamentary time for this purpose? Alternatively, they could use the amendment that they are allowed to put to the Queen’s Speech motion. If an inquiry is not proposed by the Government, would the Liberal Democrats support a Back-Bench initiative from the Labour side so that we as a Parliament, on a cross-party basis, can get the inquiry that the public demand?
I certainly think that all the Opposition parties in this House should work together on that and work with those Labour Back Benchers who are prepared to be open-minded about the issue, as many of them were. Five years ago, more than 100 of them bravely went against very hard whipping from their Front Benchers to support our arguments against the war, so I am sure that that could be brought about by people of good faith.
Given the scale of the disaster in Iraq, it is perhaps understandable that the Government are reluctant to open their files. There was a chance during the change of Prime Minister to seize the moment, draw a line and have the inquiry, but I am afraid that once again the new Prime Minister ducked that opportunity—as in so many things, he is blowing his chances.
We owe an inquiry to the people who have died—the 175 British servicemen and women and the 4,000 American troops, and the countless Iraqi civilians. Whether that figure is the latest UN estimate of 0.25 million or the higher figures of The Lancet and other surveys, those deaths demand an inquiry, as do the injured, the tortured, the refugees, the internally displaced, the kidnapped, the people whose lives have been ruined—the millions of people affected by the decision to go to war. When we begin to count the cost of the war in the lives lost and in the damage to security, stability and the rule of international law, it is, frankly, frightening. That is before we get to the cost to the taxpayer, the cost to our friends and allies in the region—countries such as Turkey, Israel and Jordan—and the cost of making less friendly countries in the region much stronger, such as Iran and Syria, which have been strengthened by the failures in Iraq. Then we should think of the cost to the United Nations and its credibility. How can anyone say that there is no need for an urgent inquiry?
Is not the fact that the UK is spending £4.5 million a day enough reason alone for an inquiry?
It is low down on the list, given all the deaths that have occurred, but it is one of the many reasons for the inquiry.
Liberal Democrat Members will vote for the motion, but I cannot let the debate go by without a slight comment on the Conservatives’ position. They are right to push again for an inquiry, as the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks did well, but even he must understand that his position is much weakened by his refusal to admit that the Conservatives were wrong to back the war in the first place. Of course, the Conservatives are desperate that people should not be reminded of their complicity. Their call for an inquiry has long been part of their tactics in seeking to distance themselves from responsibility for this catastrophe. Yet they cannot escape their past, for they are guilty on three counts for aiding and abetting the war.
First, the Conservative party leadership argued the case for military action, at times with far more enthusiasm than Tony Blair. On 1 September 2002, the then Conservative party leader said that
“we can choose to act pre-emptively or we can prevaricate”.
If that was not a call to war, I do not know what was. Then he added:
“Those who genuinely seek evidence in support of potential military action in Iraq will find there is plenty of it; those who oppose intervention at all costs will never find enough.”
In other words: “Suspend your rational faculties and go with your prejudices.”
The second count on which the Conservatives are guilty is that of failing to ask the pertinent questions. So convinced were they that the war was legal that they left it to the Liberal Democrats to push for the true legal opinion.
Not just the Liberal Democrats.
And indeed to others in this House, on the nationalist Benches and on the Labour Back Benches.
I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
No!
Were not the deliberations of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) all about distancing himself from the Government’s decision to go to war, and are not the hon. Gentleman’s remarks all about distancing his party from the Conservatives?
I am afraid that I made a mistake in allowing the hon. Gentleman to intervene. I will listen to my hon. Friends more in future.
So convinced were the Conservatives that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that they attacked our view that the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time. So convinced were they that the war was right that they failed to join the Liberal Democrats in demanding to know what the exit strategy was and for how long UK troops would be committed. Failing to ask those searching questions before a decision to go to war is a failure to perform the constitutional duty of an Opposition party.
The third charge against the Conservatives is that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks and 144 of their Conservative colleagues voted for the war. It is just possible that some of them regret their decision and believe that it was a mistake, although the official Conservative Front-Bench position is still that the war was right. I find it astonishing that even five years after the war, with all the evidence that it was so wrong, the Conservatives will not give their regrets. Of course, some of them may try running the line that they were misled by Tony Blair, and that with the truth now available and the benefit of hindsight, and now that we know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, they can somehow escape the blame for voting for the war. However, that was not the argument of the Conservative leader and his Front Benchers at the time. In October 2002, he said at his party’s conference:
“We cannot wait until we have irrefutable proof that Saddam has nuclear, biological and chemical weapons targeted on the British people.”
The truth is that the Conservatives at no stage relied on the Government’s dossier of September 2002 to make their case for war. That is why we believe that when the inquiry comes it must be a comprehensive one that will be free to question all Members of this House from whatever party.
I hope that the House will vote for an inquiry tonight, but if the Government really do try to put it off, they must know that their day of reckoning will come.
I think that I have been quite consistent during the time that I have spoken about Iraq in this Chamber. I argued for one thing—for the removal of a regime that persecuted its own people and was responsible for 5,000 deaths in Halabja, for the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds throughout Kurdistan, and for the deaths of tens of thousands of Shi’a in the south. It was for humanitarian reasons that I always argued for the removal of the regime, and I did so in 2003 when I spoke in favour of the war. I did that because I had failed—and I would suggest that we had all failed—in looking at the alternatives to war in the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime. There were alternatives. There was an alternative that I spoke about here for at least seven years; in fact, I continually bored myself by talking about it so often. I was very pleased that 201 people in this Chamber—my colleagues in all parts of the House—voted at that time to indict the regime and to remove it by international law. That would have been possible.
I support the inquiry, but I would like it to include the question of why nobody took the indictment of the regime seriously at that time. I chaired an organisation called Indict, which had collected evidence of Iraqi war crimes over a period of seven years. We had three researchers who went to 15 countries all over the world and collected that evidence in case anybody forgot about it. Some of the evidence went back further back than seven years; it went back for more than 30 years, because it was for 30 years that that regime persecuted its own people. We employed researchers and lawyers to take testimony from Iraqis all over the world. We gathered evidence, carried out interviews and prepared legal briefs detailing the monstrosity of the Saddam regime as told to us by individual Iraqis. We took many more testimonies than we were able to use; some of them, unfortunately, would not have stood up in a court of law. The crimes committed by the regime were truly appalling.
The right hon. Lady argued for military action on humanitarian grounds, but would she agree that one of the disasters of the Iraq war is that—without an inquiry—it makes military action for humanitarian purposes in future even less likely?
I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is completely missing my point, which is that there was an alternative to war, but nobody took it seriously enough. At that time, it was possible under international law to indict leading members of the regime, particularly Tariq Aziz, on the taking of hostages. We presented evidence to the then Attorney-General, who passed it to Scotland Yard. I remember saying to him, “You’re kicking it into the long grass,” and in the long grass it remained, because, as far as I know, Scotland Yard took no action at all. In fact, we were ridiculed in the press for wasting police time. There were very few people in this House who supported alternative action; I have mentioned the 201 who did.
On the board of Indict—much to people’s surprise, I am sure—were leading members of the Iraqi opposition. They also believed that indictment was the way to remove leading members of the regime, and they believed that the regime would fall as the result of that action. Those members included Latif Rashid, who is now the Iraqi Water Resources Minister, Ahmad Chalabi, who now chairs a committee on reconstruction in Baghdad, and Hamid Al-Bayati, who is now Iraqi permanent representative to the UN in New York. By 2003 we had enough evidence to indict Tariq Aziz. I personally attempted to get the indictment in Belgium, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. We were funded by the Americans because, at that time, their statute of limitations did not enable prosecutions or indictments to take place in the United States, but they were possible in Europe.
My right hon. Friend makes an important point, but does she regret—as those who shared her concern but still voted against war do—that when the trial of Saddam Hussein finally took place, it was framed in such narrow terms that none of the charges about which she had collected evidence were allowed to be addressed? The British and American Governments felt that evidence of our own complicit involvement in supporting and perpetrating those atrocities would be unearthed .
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I would have liked a full-scale indictment where all the charges against Saddam Hussein could have been heard. I hope that they will be heard in other cases; do not forget that the trials are still going on. My point does not concern those trials, however, but the opportunity that we missed in this place for an alternative to war. I was not somebody who supported war; I did so only on rare occasions. I was active in the peace movement. I supported war as a last resort because we failed to get those indictments. I hoped that in the United Kingdom most of all, we would have seen how to use international law to avert a war, but we failed to do so. I would like to see that dealt with in an inquiry.
Some of those on the other side of the House are asking for an apology from those of us who voted for military action in 2003. I do not apologise, because I still think that it was the right thing to do to remove that regime. However, it is quite right to ask what went wrong. Unlike many Foreign Office officials, I have not yet put my memoirs on paper. However, I have been closely involved with Iraq for more than 30 years. I have my own criticisms of how things progressed after the war—[Interruption.] I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) wants to intervene. I do not need him pointing out, thank you; I am not deaf. We should have examined certain possibilities to the full, and we did not do so.
Does my right hon. Friend consider that any inquiry held should also look at the role of the Foreign Office and Ministers in relation to the refusal to allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq just after Christmas 2002? The inspectors had clearly made enormous progress in disarming the regime. As she knows, I supported the idea of indicting the regime before that. The inspectors were not allowed to return, and instead we rushed into war, with all the consequences that followed.
My hon. Friend was one of those few people who, in 1988, came with me to the Foreign Office to complain about the actions of the Conservative party in its dealings with Iraq. In particular, when the events at Halabja occurred, the then Foreign Office Minister said that there was no evidence. We said at that time, “We insist that you get the evidence, because it is there.” My hon. Friend has played an honourable role in pursuing these matters for a long period.
I go to Iraq frequently—I was there in December—and at the moment there are green shoots of optimism. There is no doubt about that; even the sternest critic of the war would have to admit that there is progress and optimism. There are positive developments, but what is happening in Basra at the moment is very unfortunate. It is a pity that we could not hear from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary about the events that are taking place there as we speak. I understand that British jets are involved in some sort of surveillance and in giving information to Iraqi forces fighting on the ground. We are not quite as detached from what is going on there as some people may suggest, which is why it would not be helpful to have an inquiry now, next week or the month afterwards, although I do think it essential to have one at some stage. In particular, I would like the inquiry to ask why we did not make more of an effort to get an indictment when we had the evidence to do so.
The right hon. Lady says that she voted for the invasion reluctantly, because we could not get the indictment. However, would she accept that invading a country for regime change is illegal under international law, and that that was not the reason given for the vote in this House? On 25 February 2003, the Prime Minister told us:
“I detest his regime…but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN’s demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 124.]
In other words, if Saddam Hussein had given up the non-existent weapons of mass destruction that Hans Blix could not find, he would have been allowed to stay in power, and it was not about regime change.
That may be the case, but it is not my case. My point is that for more than 25 years, senior Iraqi officials committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The list is long, and people need reminding of it; I sometimes think that people have conveniently wiped it from their memory. It was important to get regime change; I have not changed my mind one little bit.
My right hon. Friend knows, because she has been involved in the campaign longer than I have, that we have just marked the 20th anniversary of the terrible Anfal atrocities that Saddam carried out, but where has that appeared on the BBC? Where has the “Today” programme been? When did John Humphrys talk about that yesterday? There has not been a word.
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. He is absolutely right. I tried to talk about it last week on a BBC programme and I was continuously told, “It’s Basra we’re talking about. Basra.” We need to assemble all the facts; we cannot take something in isolation and talk about only one specific case. The genocidal Anfal campaign against Iraqi Kurds in 1987-88, the invasion of Kuwait, the killing of more than 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians and the violent suppression of the 1991 Kurdish uprising led to 30,000 or more civilian deaths. I am interested to know what the Conservative party’s solution would have been. Would it have allowed Saddam to continue to persecute his own people?
The right hon. Lady makes the case for regime change and says that the war in Iraq was all about that as far as she was concerned. Why was the case for regime change different in Iraq from the case that could be made against dictators and despots the world over? What is the difference between the position in Iraq that she has outlined and the position in Zimbabwe, where there is the most awful dictator, Robert Mugabe? Why is it right to invade one country to change the regime and not another?
Because Iraq had ignored 17 UN Security Resolutions—[Interruption.] I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has ever sat in the UN and listened, as I did for several years running, to the report of the UN rapporteur on human rights in Iraq, who detailed all the things that I have mentioned today. The UN Security Council sat there and did nothing. If the UN is to mean something, surely ignoring 17 UN Security Council resolutions is important.
The right hon. Lady has been a tireless campaigner and I respect the fact that she has been consistent in her arguments. However, does she accept that the humanitarian reasons were not those given to the House or the country to justify going to war with Iraq? That is why we urgently need an inquiry into the Iraq war now.
I agree that humanitarian arguments were not presented. I think that they should have been, and that we should ask why they were not. I know the slick answer to that question, but some of us, including many of my hon. Friends who opposed the war, presented the arguments for regime change for many years. We consistently said that something should be done about the Iraqi regime. I believed that the regime should have been indicted under international law. It was possible in the case of Milosevic, so why not in the case of Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz and many others on our list who are in jail awaiting trial?
To take up the point that the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee made, it is important to remind people why the regime was so bad. The people of Iraq deserve to hear that themselves, and the people who lost family during those years need to hear the people who perpetrated those crimes answering for them.
rose—
Order. I remind hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 15-minute time limit on Back-Bench contributions.
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who speaks with such experience and knowledge of Iraq. I am sure that the points that she made could be accommodated in the terms of reference of the sort of inquiry that the motion envisages, and I hope that she will perhaps reconsider her intention to vote against the motion, because the logic of her speech is that such an inquiry should be held and that the best time for it is now.
I agree with many speakers, including the Foreign Secretary, that we should pay tribute to the way in which our forces have performed in Iraq. That unites us all. Many of them were trained at Lydd and Hythe in my constituency, and several were trained in Shorncliffe, also in my constituency, before they went to Iraq. They have performed superbly and we owe them a deep debt of gratitude.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary on a powerful, compelling and, in my view, unanswerable speech. I sympathise, in his absence, with the Foreign Secretary for the task with which he was saddled. I was a practising barrister for 21 years and during that time I had to argue some pretty thin cases. I had the privilege of being a Minister for 12 years and I readily confess that there were one or two occasions—very few—when I found myself defending from the Dispatch Box one or two positions that were perhaps a little thinner than I would have liked. However, I am happy to say that I have never had the experience of attempting to advance such threadbare arguments as the Foreign Secretary was obliged to present today.
May I take the right hon. and learned Gentleman back to the late 1980s when he was a Minister? Since he supports an inquiry, as I do, does he accept that it should include a thorough investigation of those Ministers, civil servants and others who authorised selling arms to Iraq, even after the events at Halabja, and of British participation, which Ministers approved, in the Baghdad arms fair the following year?
That is exactly what the Scott inquiry examined at length. It was right to hold an inquiry into those matters. The previous Government set it up and it duly reported.
Our debates about the need for an inquiry into events surrounding the invasion of Iraq before and after it took place were clothed in a language that had an arcane theology of its own. That was when the former Prime Minister was still in office and before the Defence Secretary’s announcement in 2006, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) referred. The Government position then was that no full inquiry was needed because of those that had already taken place.
Those debates were punctuated with obscure arguments about the precise terms of reference of the previous inquiries and the extent to which they had been implemented. The Government’s position at that time and in the context of those arguments was not only inconsistent with that which the Foreign Secretary advanced today but directly contradicted it. Their argument then was, “We’ve had all these wide-ranging and comprehensive inquiries—there’s nothing left to inquire into.” Fortunately they realised—I suppose that they deserve some credit for it—that that position was untenable. They therefore changed it and accepted that the case for an inquiry was unanswerable. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, as we have heard today, the Government’s position is, “Yes, we’ll have an inquiry, but not yet. We won’t tell you when or precisely what circumstances must be satisfied. It’ll happen sometime, but not yet.” That exposed a vulnerability in the Government’s line, which, as we have witnessed this evening, was obvious, clear and wholly indefensible. There is no good reason for not holding an inquiry now, and everyone, including the Government, knows it.
It is interesting that when the Prime Minister responded to the case for holding an inquiry that the Fabian Society put forward, he limited himself to just one reason. He said that it is
“vital that the government does not divert attention from supporting Iraq’s development as a secure and stable country.”
That prompts the question, which has already arisen in this debate: whose attention would be diverted from that task? It would not be our troops on the ground in Iraq whose attention would be diverted. Indeed, it is difficult if not impossible to see how they would be involved in such an inquiry, so there is no cause for concern there. The Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary, who we hope are spearheading the United Kingdom’s support for Iraq’s development as a stable and secure country—they have the political responsibility for that task—were not involved in the events surrounding the invasion, so they are not likely to have their attention diverted from that important task, either.
The House is entitled to know whom the Prime Minister had in mind when he uttered those words. We are entitled to an answer. Who are the people whose attention would be diverted from that task? I hope that the Minister, who has the unenviable task of replying to this debate, will respond to that question. If the Prime Minister says that the reason for not holding an inquiry now is that we must not divert people’s attention from that task, we want to know whose attention would be diverted.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has been around long enough to know that several serving members of the Government, some of whom were in other Departments before, were intimately involved in the events of 2003.
That is not what the Prime Minister said. He did not say, “We can’t have an inquiry because there are lots of Ministers who have important business to attend to and we mustn’t distract them.” He said, “We can’t have an inquiry, because we mustn’t divert people from the responsibility of what they need to do in Iraq.” That prompts the question that must be answered if we are to give any credence at all to the position advanced by the Government.
The truth, of course, is that there are lessons that could be learned from such an inquiry and from which we could benefit. Those lessons could benefit what we are doing in Iraq and in Afghanistan now. It is a disgrace that we should be deprived of those benefits for no good reason at all.
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that many military personnel would welcome an inquiry now? Many in the military feel that they were left with a huge burden, in moving into Iraq and creating a level of peace without back-up from other Departments—namely the Department for International Development, which did not undertake the reconstruction and redevelopment that was so needed. However, it is the military who receive the brunt of the complaints about what has gone wrong.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is one of the many reasons why we need an inquiry.
I did not intend to intervene on the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but following the point raised with him by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) does he not accept—I raised this point earlier with the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman—that were an inquiry to take place now or in the months ahead that indicted the Government and was critical of the conditions in which the troops had found themselves, and that was published while the troops were still there, the leadership of those troops would become almost impossible for the officers, because they would lack the political credibility enabling them to be there in the first place? Is that not the real reason why it is important not to hold an inquiry now?
No, I do not accept that reasoning at all. My right hon. and hon. Friends have cited the precedents. It is inconceivable that the results of any such inquiry could have that effect on the limited role that our troops are currently carrying out in Basra. The argument does not begin to make sense. We know what the troops are doing and what they are there for. It is inconceivable that the results of any such inquiry could in any way damage their position. Also, that argument was not the reason put forward by the Prime Minister—it may be the hon. Gentleman’s reason, but it is not the Prime Minister’s.
So what is the reason? Why are the Government proving to be so obstinate? What is the real reason for their procrastination? I suppose that some people may be tempted to put it down to the Prime Minister’s natural tendency towards procrastination—we know that he finds it difficult to make decisions about all sorts of things. However, I believe that a more specific reason is at play in this case. I believe that there is only one conclusion that we can draw from the Government’s behaviour: that they do not want an inquiry that will report before the next general election. The Government do not want any inquiry’s findings to be available to the electorate when they come to give their verdict on the Government. The Government do not want those findings to be taken into account when that verdict is delivered. In short, they are running away from the principle that should be central to our parliamentary democracy: the principle of accountability.
Earlier this afternoon, the Justice Secretary introduced a White Paper from the Dispatch Box. Practically the first sentence that he spoke was, “Accountability is fundamental to the health of our democracy.” The Government’s attitude to the motion before the House in this debate gives the lie to what the Justice Secretary said just that short time ago.
Let me finish by giving the Foreign Secretary a word or two of advice in his absence—I hope that it will be transmitted to him. This issue will not go away. This will not be the last time that it is debated in the House, and if the Government stick to their line, this will not be the last time that the Justice Secretary is so painfully embarrassed in the studios of the “Today” programme as he was this morning, or the last time that the Foreign Secretary is so humiliated at the Dispatch Box as he was this afternoon. I urge the Foreign Secretary to use all his persuasive powers to get the Prime Minister to see how ludicrous the Government’s current position is. The Government have changed their position once; they can change it again. The sooner they do so, the better.
Since 2003 there have been four inquiries into the events leading up to the war in Iraq, as has been stated. There has been the Butler inquiry, the Hutton inquiry, the Intelligence and Security Committee inquiry and the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry, which was agreed in June 2003.
However, there is a need for ongoing investigation and inquiry, and for lessons to be learned. I gave evidence to Channel 4’s Iraq Commission inquiry a few months ago. That was a valuable exercise and the report of the commission, which is chaired by Lord Ashdown, was a valuable piece of work. However, that is not what today’s debate is about. In today’s motion, hon. Members are pressing for
“an independent committee of privy councillors”
to conduct an inquiry. We might ask whether one can find such a thing as a genuinely independent Privy Councillor, but that is a debate for another time.
Reference has been made to the US Baker-Hamilton inquiry. That inquiry was composed not only of current members of the US House of Representatives and the Senate. It was a body that brought in academic experts and former diplomats, as well as Lee Hamilton and James Baker as its bipartisan chairs.
My first criticism of the motion before us relates to my belief that we need to widen the focus of any such inquiry, when the time comes. We also need to take account of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) referred to as the long history of events in Iraq that led to the decisions made in this House in March 2003. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who is not in his place at the moment, said that an inquiry should concentrate on 2002, 2003 and 2004. I would ask why, and I would do so for two reasons. Reference was made earlier to the Scott inquiry. That inquiry did not deal with the terrible crimes of Saddam against the Kurdish people in Halabja. Instead, it took a narrow focus on the supergun, Matrix Churchill and the way in which public immunity certificates were used in a legal process to stop the truth coming out under the previous Conservative Government. The late Robin Cook did a fantastic job of demolishing the Conservative party and its role in that debate, after the Scott report was published. Any inquiry that takes account of the recent past would also have to take account of the previous history.
Reference was also made to the arms sales policies of the 1980s, when some of the Conservative Members who are here today were members of the Government who were selling arms to Saddam. We can look back to 1980, when Margaret Thatcher and the right hon. and learned Members for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) were all part of that British Conservative Government. They made the decision to support the Ba’athist fascist regime in Iraq, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, as well as supporting Osama bin Laden and other disreputable people whom we now regard as beyond the pale. At that time, however, for reasons of state, certain decisions were made. We need to look at the whole context.
If there is to be an inquiry, let it not be partisan. Let us have an inquiry into the UK’s relations with Iraq over the past 30 years. Let us really dig up the stones and look at the way in which those on the Conservative Benches who are now taking a holier-than-thou position on these matters were conspiring to support that Ba’athist regime while my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) and I were campaigning against the arming of Saddam. Let us not forget that as we discuss what kind of inquiry we should have.
I am listening intently to the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, which stretch over many decades. I take it that, like me, he is very impatient for an inquiry into the war in Iraq, and that he will vote for such an inquiry tonight.
If the motion before us today proposed an inquiry into all aspects of UK relations with Iraq over the past 30 years, I would indeed support it, speak to it and vote for it. However, that is not the focus of the narrow motion that we are debating today. I will therefore not support it.
My friend is becoming very animated. Did he know that the Public Administration Committee will be taking evidence next week on the possibility of initiating a parliamentary inquiry into the circumstances leading to the war in Iraq? Given that such an inquiry would not be partisan—the Opposition motion is, by nature, partisan—would he support an inquiry couched in those terms?
I am always in favour of Select Committees of this House initiating inquiries. I was a member of the Defence Committee, which carried out an inquiry into the lessons of Iraq. It was published in 2004 and, incidentally, was very critical of the then Secretary of State for International Development for failing to get her officials to prepare for the aftermath of the conflict. If I remember correctly, she criticised us rather robustly in a debate on that report in the House. I believe that all Select Committees should take the initiative in holding the Executive to account, both for what they are doing now and for what they have done in the past. That is the appropriate route to take if we are to strengthen the power of the Committees of this House against the Executive. That is what we should be doing.
I will give way to my friend over there, my colleague on the Foreign Affairs Committee, even though he is also from the Liberal Democrats.
I am grateful to my Chairman for giving way. Thanks to the procedures that we have in this House, we can now be texted by our constituents. One of mine is watching this debate in Basra, on the BBC Parliament channel, and he simply wants to know why he is there. I accept what the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) have said, but surely the real question for today’s debate is: why did we deploy troops in 2003? Will the Chairman of the Select Committee support this motion calling for an inquiry? The recent past that he is describing has nothing to do with the argument that the rest of us in this Chamber are engaged in.
I am afraid that I will not support the Conservative motion tonight. Nor, unfortunately, will I be able to vote against the Liberal Democrat motion, as far as I am aware. I believe that simply to call for an apology from the Conservatives or from the Labour party needs to be balanced—
Order. Perhaps I can advise the hon. Gentleman that the only amendment under discussion tonight is the one tabled by the Government.
I shall take your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I would simply say that there needs to be a recognition that some of us, whichever side we took in this debate, are glad that Saddam is no longer in power. That would not have been possible without the intervention that took place in 2003. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley made the point very strongly that some people tried to find other ways to get rid of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq. They tried to do so in 1991, when the Shi’as in the south rose up and were massacred. They rose up with the encouragement of the first President Bush, and ended up being slaughtered, and the Kurds were driven into the mountains. I pay tribute to the role that John Major played at the time, when the previous Conservative Government brought in the no-fly zone to protect the Kurds.
Some people, having taken the position of saying that those crimes were terrible, did not follow the logic of saying that we had to get rid of the regime that had made them possible. I always took the view, as I do today, that regime change in Iraq was the right way to go. That was what I argued in the debate at the time, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley. However, that was not the position taken by the Government or by those on the Opposition Front Bench. It was also not a position taken by many others at that time, who took a narrower focus.
However, many of us had fought and campaigned against the Ba’athist regime for many years. I had friends who were students in this country, and who had come here as refugees from Saddam in the 1970s and 1980s. They told me about the terrible crimes that his regime had carried out. Some of those people went back to Iraq, and some are now in the Iraqi Parliament or in the Iraqi Government. They would not be alive today if this country had not welcomed them as refugees and supported them later on.
I am grateful to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee for giving way. I think that the record will show that, a moment ago, he said that he was in favour of regime change in Iraq. Will he therefore explain how it is possible to be the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and to be in favour of something that is actually illegal in international law?
The problem with the crude, simplistic view of the world is that it does not take account of facts. The fact is that over 12 years Saddam’s regime was, as already stated, in breach of 17 successive Security Council resolutions. There was and there remains a very strong argument—unfortunately, it was not tested—for intervention to remove that regime—[Interruption.]
I will give way in a moment. Presumably, the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) will tell me that he was against what happened in Kosovo in 1999.
Was that a yes?
It was a yes.
It seems so. That is interesting.
Order. Will Members note that the usual rules of debate apply in the Chamber?
The Scottish National party is at least being consistent—[Interruption.] Consistently wrong, but consistent. There needs to be a serious debate about humanitarian intervention and when it is right to exercise a responsibility to protect as called for under the UN system by the Canadian commission and as debated at the millennium summit. We need to look at the issues surrounding Iraq in that context.
I give way to the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt).
I am grateful. The hon. Gentleman has just paid a generous and proper tribute to Iraqi politicians who literally take their lives in their hands by participating in the politics of that country. He is a senior Member of this House, the Chairman of a Select Committee, and he also served on the Defence Committee when I did. That Defence Committee reported:
“We regret that MOD has failed to provide us with certain documents which we have requested and has demonstrated on occasion less co-operation and openness than we have the right to expect as a select Committee of the House of Commons”.
Is it not sad that, in advancing his arguments this evening, the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to stand up for the rights of Parliament against the Executive? Is that not a very sad example to show to the Iraqi politicians he mentioned?
I will not take that from the hon. Gentleman. I am afraid that I will take no lectures from him. We could discuss what happened in the Defence Committee in 2003 and 2004, but that would be outside the terms of our debate. What I would say to the hon. Gentleman and others is that when we have an inquiry, it is crucial that it is conducted on the right basis. It must be constituted on the basis of wide support—not just in the House or among “independent privy councillors”, but also among academics, journalists, former diplomats, perhaps even people in the BBC if that is possible—having heard the “Today” programme yesterday and today, I sometimes wonder whether another agenda is at work, as certain issues about Iraq are not mentioned. There is a constant litany of one view, which unfortunately does not inform the wider debate.
On the way forward, we need an inquiry to look into other aspects before, during and after 2003. One such aspect is the scandalous abuse of the oil-for-food programme, in which at least one Member of this House—the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway)—has been implicated. There are also scandals relating to the role of consultants and contractors and the money—mostly US money, not UK money—that has not got through to the Iraqi people in the reconstruction period. I do not know what the real costs of the conflict have been.
That is important now!
That is important now and it is particularly important in the US, because mainly US money is involved. British money spent in Basra in 2003-04 through the quick-fix quick-impact projects was a small amount well spent, whereas the US spent huge amounts very badly and inefficiently. I think that issue could be looked into further in connection with the question of how to prepare the ground for reconstruction after a conflict.
Give way!
No, I am in my final minute. I have been generous in giving way several times.
The issues emerging from an inquiry will not be only for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We need to look at the role of the Department for International Development, as well as that of the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice; we need to look into the training of policemen and the other people we need to help build up judicial systems; we need to look into ways of giving advice on humanitarian law. All that is very hard to accomplish when we are trying to recreate a country almost from scratch. An inquiry will be needed at the appropriate time, but it will need to be established on a much wider basis than is provided for in the motion.
I voted against the invasion of Iraq. As we have all heard, we have already had four inquiries and one might ask why we need a fifth. There are just two arguments in favour of that—one is on account of the scale of the disaster that has flowed from the invasion; the other is the need to know how it came about that we invaded Iraq in the first place.
I thought that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), who was such a distinguished foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal party, put his finger absolutely on the real reason why the Government do not want an inquiry. Actually, we all know what has gone wrong. Anyone who has followed what happened knows perfectly well what went wrong in the Iraq war. We do not need another inquiry on that score, although the people in charge are, of course, reproducing the same mistakes in Afghanistan. The fact that they are doing so shows that no inquiry is going to educate them on these matters. No, the real reason is that Labour Members are frightened that the activities of the then Prime Minister in the run-up to the war will be exposed in detail.
Three inquiries—into the Crimea, Mesopotamia and Gallipoli—have already been mentioned, but one much more relevant inquiry has not been mentioned: the Jameson raid inquiry—[Hon. Members: “Ah.”] The key issue there was whether Joseph Chamberlain, without the knowledge of his Cabinet colleagues or of civil servants in his Colonial Office or the Foreign Office, conspired with Cecil Rhodes to launch that raid. It led, of course, to the disastrous Boer war, in which British casualties were incomparably higher than in Iraq so far—tragic though those have been.
The voting on the inquiry was entirely on party lines, as it always is in the end, so no one knows to this day whether or not Joe Chamberlain was a scoundrel. However, Enoch Powell, who wrote a biography of Joe Chamberlain, told me that when he started studying and writing about Chamberlain’s career, he thought he was a great hero, but by the time he had finished, he was convinced that he was a scoundrel. That is also my view, in that I am pretty certain that he had foreknowledge of the Jameson raid. I am also convinced that Mr. Tony Blair entered into a conspiracy—in September 2002, if not earlier—with President George W. Bush to attack Iraq in the early months of 2003.
Would we learn nothing from the cross-examination of Tony Blair? During the Hutton inquiry, the Prime Minister was famously not cross-examined.
I am all in favour of the inquiry, because I should like to see Mr. Blair cross-examined on these matters. I have no doubt that after the American presidential election, when the new President takes over next January, the Democrats—if they win—will investigate all these matters, so we might as well do it ourselves.
I shall return to the question of Mr. Blair in a moment, but I think we must not lose sight of the magnitude of the disaster, and of the reason given to us for going to war. One would hardly believe that some of the speakers whom I have heard tonight were present when they heard Mr. Blair’s brilliant eve-of-war speech to the House of Commons, in which he made perfectly clear that regime change was not the reason why we had to go to war. The reason, we were told, was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be mobilised within 45 minutes and which might not only put our troops in Cyprus at risk, but pose a threat to Britain itself. That was the basis on which we were told that we must vote for going to war, and the basis on which the country was led into the war.
A great deal of evidence about the intelligence on which Mr. Blair based that speech has been made public, and appeared in the various reports. It is perfectly clear that the evidence did not justify the terms in which he explained the position to the House. Even Lord Butler’s report, in mandarin English, makes that clear.
This sort of thing is not unusual in history. We need only think back to the meeting between Napoleon III and Cavour at Plombières, or Bismarck’s handling of the Ems telegram—to take two of the most famous schoolboy examples, about which we were all taught at the age of 11 or 12 in the days when history was still taught in this country—to know that political leaders do periodically decide to involve themselves in skulduggery in order to achieve what they think are foreign policy aims which it is desirable to pursue.
I am not just being wise after the event, as it is so easy to be, because I never believed in any of this at the time. I had known Iraq, although not as well as the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). I had been there first when I was 19, and a number of times since then. For many years I had been an adviser to the Central Bank of Iraq on the management of its bond portfolios, and I had met every leader of Iraq from General Nuri to Saddam Hussein. I therefore had some knowledge of these matters. I know many members of the foreign service who have served in the middle east, and none of them believed the story. Moreover, they were not consulted. That was the extraordinary thing: in the run-up to all this, none of the key people in the Foreign Office with great expertise on the Arab world were consulted.
Four months before the war, during a debate on resolution 1441, I said—if I may egotistically quote from Hansard—
“It seems to me that we shall get into difficulties if the inspectors are given a free and unfettered right to search for weapons of mass destruction, if that continues without interference, and if they are unable to find any such weapons. Surely we could not, at that point, say that, because we believe that those weapons were there last September, a nil return would justify an attack on Iraq. That would be difficult to explain to the British people.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2002; Vol. 395, c. 70.]
I said that in a speech on 25 November 2002—or, rather, not a speech: just an intervention.
It was perfectly clear to me then that they were not going to allow Hans Blix and his inspectors to do their job properly. Indeed, they started a whispering campaign to discredit Hans Blix and the inspectors because they were frightened of his integrity. They started saying “The man is unreliable, and all these people are absolutely inefficient.”
A month after the attack, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, I put the following question to Mr. Blair:
“If it eventually transpires that at the time of our invasion Iraq no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction capable of threatening this country, and that the Prime Minister led this country into war on the basis of a false assumption, will he resign?”
Mr. Blair gave a long reply, from which I shall select two key sentences. Members can look it up if they wish. In his reply, the Prime Minister of the day said:
“I am absolutely convinced and confident about the case on weapons of mass destruction…we will produce the analysis and the results of that investigation in due course. I think that when we do so, the hon. Gentleman and others will be eating some of their words.”—[Official Report, 30 April 2003; Vol. 404, c. 296.]
Well, I never had to eat my words—and nor, I may say, has Mr. Blair, because he has never apologised for the whole thing.
The situation that existed then has led to a complete collapse of the balance of power in the middle east, which depended on the triangular animosities of the secular dictatorship of Iraq, the Sunni monarchical Government of Saudi Arabia and the theocratic Shi’a Government of Iran. Those three mutually conflicting animosities between the three leading countries in the middle east kept the peace. British foreign policy at its best has always supported the balance of power for that reason. By smashing the Government of the wicked Saddam Hussein they turned Iran into the major power in the area, and that has destabilised Islam all the way from Turkey to Indonesia.
Is not the point that it was not the British who decided to do that? Was it not simply Tony Blair’s appeasement of George Bush that led the United Kingdom into that situation?
I think that that is so. I was in New York on the morning of 9/11. I was not there when the attack on the twin towers took place, because my plane took off for Denver 20 minutes before the attack. I never got to Denver, where I was supposed to be making a well-paid speech to business men, because the plane was diverted to Chicago. We flew, at about 5,000 ft, all the way to Chicago. The pilot said “I cannot say what has gone wrong, but we are flying to Chicago. I am flying by sight—I have done it before—because we are not allowed to use the flight guidance instruments.” As we came in to land, we could see 40 or 50 planes on the ground. When the plane landed, we were surrounded at once by the national guard with rifles and things. I had some difficulty in getting out of the airport. I knew Chicago very well, because—
Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman has a very interesting incident to relate, but perhaps it is for another time and place.
I can show that it is relevant. When I reached the not insubstantial comforts of the Drake hotel, where I was stuck for the next six days, I found Chicago in a state of the most amazing hysteria and panic, because—
Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will now relate his remarks to the motion that the Opposition have tabled.
The American people were so shocked by the attack that President Bush felt that he had to find an enemy to attack. All his speeches thereafter mixed together that wicked attack on the twin towers with Iraq, which had nothing whatever to do with it.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I must conclude.
The extraordinary thing about Iraq was that it was the one country in the middle east where al-Qaeda could not go. Their respective leaders were bitter enemies. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein detested each other; they represented opposite ends of the theological spectrum in the Muslim world.
The American Administration led by President Bush wanted an opportunity to show the American people that they were hitting back in what they called the war on terror. They enlisted Mr. Blair’s support for that, and he dressed it up in the bogus phrase, liberal interventionism, which is in fact just an excuse for overthrowing sovereign Governments wherever we do not like them. If we were to attack every despotic ruler on that basis, the world would be in total chaos. I have no doubt that if Zimbabwe had had oil, we would have long ago thought it morally necessary to overthrow its leader.
The fact is that we did not have to attack Iraq at that time, because under the no-flight zone arrangements Kurdistan was doing better than ever before, and there was no possibility of danger from Iraq. Israel is much less secure now than it was before the attack, as the war in Lebanon against Hezbollah has proved. We are responsible, jointly with America, for the death and mutilation of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. We have driven the whole of the middle class out of Iraq. Some 4 million Iraqis have lost their homes. The water supply has gone and the drainage has gone, and the health service, which was the best in the entire middle east, has been destroyed.
There will be instability in the middle east for years to come. In my judgment, the attack on Iraq was the greatest strategic mistake that the west has made since our failure to crush the German militarisation of the Rhineland in 1936. The consequences of that went on for many years, and the consequences of our attack on Iraq will be felt for decades to come.
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), and I must say that I agree entirely with his analysis. I was opposed to the war, but not because I thought Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction. I thought that he probably did possess some residual capability of the weapons that we knew he had possessed in the Gulf war. There was evidence of that past possession, and in my view it was likely that he still maintained some capability. In the 1990s, however, weapons inspectors were crawling all over Iraq, and Hans Blix and his team and Mohamed el-Baradei were not able to gather sufficient or indeed any evidence to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein was a threat.
I was also very suspicious of President Bush constantly referring back to 9/11 and suggesting that Iraq was involved with al-Qaeda. He specifically said that Iraq
“has aided, trained and harboured terrorists, including operatives of al-Qaeda.”
We know that that was not the case. Saddam was a secularist, and if anything he had a lot to fear from the likes of al-Qaeda. President Bush blatantly exploited his people’s fear and anger about 9/11. When I put that to the former Prime Minister, he did not explicitly come out in support of President Bush, but neither did he condemn that link. Indeed, on 20 March 2003, the then Defence Secretary, now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, told me:
“There are clear links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda.”
He went on to say:
“We are not sure of the precise nature of those links”.—[Official Report, 20 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 1096.]
How can we take a Secretary of State seriously when he makes such comments to this House? In fact, I could not take at all seriously the entire evidence presented to the House, and I was very surprised that Opposition Members went along with the campaign.
It is time that we had a thorough inquiry into what happened in the run-up to the war and after it. I have reservations about the type of inquiry proposed, but the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) implied that Her Majesty’s Opposition would give the House the opportunity to specify the kind of inquiry it wants.
It might be helpful if the hon. Lady and other Labour Members who are considering voting for the inquiry are made aware that the motion that stands today in the name of the Conservative party is exactly the same as the motion previously tabled by the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru, having been drawn together by Members in all parts of the House to try to get maximum support. The motion under consideration has, therefore, been born out of views from all parts of the House.
I am aware of that. I was unable to support the previous motion at the time, because I felt it was playing politics and was personalising the matter. I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point, however.
Earlier, I mentioned the Butler report and the Intelligence and Security Committee, and I cited evidence that came to light in the Hutton inquiry of an e-mail from somebody called Matthew Rycroft to Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Clare Sumner, Robert Hill, David Manning, Alastair Campbell and John Scarlett. I shall read out the relevant parts of it:
“Ann Taylor read the draft dossier this morning and passed on some detailed comments to John Scarlett. She has just rung me to underline the following points.”
A number of points are then made, and the message ends:
“the hardest questions in the debate, not fully answered by the dossier, remain why now and why Saddam. The PM should take these on in his statement to undercut critics”.
Those questions are still relevant and have not been addressed—and certainly not by the ISC or the Butler report. Ann Taylor was a member of the Butler committee, and she was also the chairperson of the ISC.
The Foreign Secretary was surprised that I cast doubt on the Butler report. I should like to illustrate why I cast doubt on it—and not only on its membership. I and a former Member of this House, Llew Smith, submitted a detailed dossier to the Butler committee. We focused on the Government’s claim that Iraq had sought to procure uranium from Niger. We asked many detailed questions, and we made 15 recommendations. I will not go into all of them, but the report is posted on my website. It asks some pertinent questions, and refers to the fact that I and colleagues had often received contradictory evidence in response to the many parliamentary questions we had asked, and that when we queried those contradictions we were referred back to the Butler inquiry. We were anxious that Butler examined this issue in detail, because it was one of the core arguments about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to us.
We made 15 recommendations, and I wish to read out a couple of them. We stated:
“From the information made publicly available by the UK Government, the IAEA and the FAC, it is our view that the ISC investigation into this matter was insufficiently inquisitive—the ISC do not make it clear whether they even saw the relevant primary documentation. We recommend that the Butler Committee ask the Government for all relevant primary documentation on the claim, including the forged documents mentioned by the IAEA and assess what impact the forged evidence had on the UK sources of June 2002 (which is officially still ‘under consideration’ over a year after the forged evidence was revealed) and of September 2002 (the single source upon which the UK relied).”
We further recommended
“that the Butler Committee investigate whether the information the Government have made publicly available provides an accurate reflection of the primary evidence.”
The Butler committee did answer that question, concluding that it was reasonable for the Government to make their claims. The logic by which it reached that conclusion must be highly questionable. It cited information obtained from the International Atomic Energy Agency that makes it clear that not only before the war, when it presented its evidence to the UN in March 2003, but more recently, it had received no further evidence that would lead it to believe that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger.
The Butler report makes no comment on the fact that the international agency charged with looking into these matters did not believe that Iraq had sought to procure uranium from Niger, but simply talks about reasonableness. It states:
“Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.”
That is a risible argument. How can we take such an argument seriously? Yet, that was the Butler report’s conclusion.
Furthermore, that report did not take on board the argument that we had presented, which was that under article 10 of UN Security Council resolution 1441, member states were required to provide any information on Iraq’s prohibited weapons programmes, so either the British Government did not make that information available or they did make it available and the IAEA concluded that it was not credible.
I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady. Can she complete this study on the uranium, or yellow cake, by sharing with the House how it ended up being mentioned in the State of the Union address by President Bush?
It was mentioned in the State of the Union address, but shortly afterwards a withdrawal was made. The UK Government cited CIA intelligence in support of their argument that uranium was sought, yet the CIA did not support that; it simply reported that another state had reported this fact. There is no evidence of any support from America or the CIA. Again, Butler neglects that fact, which was again argued closely in our dossier.
All the evidence suggests that the United Kingdom Government were going out of their way to present evidence in a way that justified going to war. I could not put it better than the former member of the Defence Intelligence Staff, Brian Jones, who said:
“A small coterie in and around No 10 knew that the Prime Minister needed an intelligence assessment that allowed him to paint a picture of an Iraq bristling with WMDs. That alone won him the public and parliamentary support he needed to go to war. A few top intelligence officials were the facilitators, providing the political spinners with enough of what they needed and the silence of an acquiescent Joint Intelligence Committee did the rest”.
We need to get to the bottom of how this House was misled in voting to go to war.
Will my hon. Friend also consider the possibility of examining the cost of war—the sustained amount of money that seems to appear during a war? As the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), the historian across the way, will recall, during the 1920s Churchill, Bonar Law and Lloyd George had long debates on the issue of money being spent on the equivalent of the Iraq war then. Why has there not been a proper discussion in this Chamber of the escalating costs of this war? Why does that escalation happen?
With respect, that is not a matter relating to the inquiry. I merely make the point that had the resources that have been deployed in this war been devoted to fighting terrorism by winning hearts and minds, we would not face the kind of international threat from terrorists that we face today.
I am also moved to support the motion as a result of recent contact with one of my constituents. She is a British subject and citizen, and her husband, who is currently in prison in Iraq, has joint citizenship. In February 2003, Oxfam stated:
“Those who propose war have not yet shown that any threat from Iraq is so imminent that it justifies the risk of so much suffering”.
We know that so much suffering has been felt, and I shall tell the House about the suffering experienced by my constituent and her husband.
Although it was not the main reason for going to war, in Prime Minister’s questions Tony Blair told me:
“If we remove Saddam…the people who will rejoice most will be the Iraqi people who will be free of a murderous tyrant”.—[Official Report, 19 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 936.]
The Iraqi people are free of one murderous tyrant, but many hundreds of murderous tyrants have sprung up in his place. The Iraqi Government are weak and the country is run by fiefdoms and militia.
The constituent to whom I referred, Mohammed Hussein, was in Iraq in January 2007. He went there with his wife and two-year-old son to try to persuade his mother to come to the UK for medical treatment—she was very ill. She had been unwilling to leave Iraq because she was living in the same household as her daughter-in-law, whose husband, her son, had been killed in Baghdad by terrorists. Her son was a member of the Iraqi police force. She was forced to flee Baghdad to Najaf, which I am told was more peaceful at the time. She was not allowed by the governor of Najaf to join two of her daughters who were in the city, but she did join another daughter who was living in its outskirts. In the run-up to the holy festival of Ashura, she, her family and my constituents were outside Najaf at a place called Zarga. On the night before Ashura, Mohammed Hussein telephoned a number—I think it is 130—that Iraqi citizens are invited to use to report any suspicious activity. He reported that a number of armed men had been seen in the vicinity. Subsequently, there was an event that became known as the battle of Najaf. During that conflict, the mother, sister and, we believe, the brother-in-law of my constituent were killed, and my constituents were rounded up along with many other people.
Since then, along with hundreds of people who were rounded up simply for being in the vicinity of that conflict area, my constituent was sentenced—in an en bloc trial where no individual evidence was allowed—to 15 years’ imprisonment. I have a letter from his wife telling me about the torture that he suffered from the Iraqi authorities. She said:
“During this time he has been tortured brutally. He was hung from the ceiling for two hours causing permanent damage to his arms and attempts were made to pull out his nails.”
She gave some further information, and I have since spoken to her. She told me that she witnessed the torture of another woman with whom she was imprisoned for a short time. She said that that woman was hung from the ceiling, her clothes were forced above her waist and she was beaten on the legs and feet by the authorities. My constituent was threatened with the prospect that that would happen to her. For a while, she was imprisoned near her husband. She said that he was chained to a toilet and guards came in intermittently, beat him and threatened to rape his wife and his sister. That is what is going on in Iraq today. Is that what we fought this war for?
I went to Iraq in 2005 and met many people, and the majority were in favour of the war. Almost all of them, however, condemned the nature of the occupation. They said that it had been totally mishandled. They were very concerned that the Iraqi people were seeing no benefits from the millions of dollars that were being poured into their country. One said to me, “No other tyrant has done what the Americans have done to my country.”
We also spoke to an opinion pollster who had set up the first opinion poll in Iraq. He had 350 very brave people going out throughout the country—
Order. I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s time is up.
I commend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) on her moving comments and clear illustration of what happens when one goes to war, even if it is for the best of purposes, but then loses control of subsequent events. I shall return to those considerations in a few moments’ time.
The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), said that the Prime Minister had missed an opportunity, when he came to office, to try to distance himself from the Iraq war by initiating an inquiry. Although one would have liked to see the Prime Minister do that, it was never really on the cards. The Prime Minister is as involved as Tony Blair was. During that period, he was the second most powerful member of the Government, and if he had made it clear that he could not support the war, it would not have happened with British involvement. The Prime Minister of the day could not have accepted such a consideration. The Prime Minister has a serious problem, which explains the rather curious way in which he has tried to handle these legitimate demands for an inquiry.
Reference has been made to the letter that the Prime Minister was sent by the Fabian Society. What he said in his reply, which has already been mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), is rather curious. The Prime Minister said that it was
“vital that the Government does not divert attention from supporting Iraq’s development as a secure and stable country.”
Is it seriously being suggested that we have to wait until Iraq is a secure and stable country before the Government will feel able to initiate the inquiry that they promised? We all know that even in the best scenario it will be years, if not decades, before Iraq is a secure and stable country. That cannot be the basis for denying the inquiry that is so clearly necessary.
The case for an inquiry is unanswerable, both for reasons that are internal to Iraq and for reasons regarding the implications for the region as a whole. I refer again to the Prime Minister’s comments, because they show the confusion and double standards at the heart of Government. The Government are confused. They know that their policy on Iraq is a shambles and that they cannot deal with the criticisms properly. When the leader of the Liberal Democrats asked the Prime Minister last week whether he had any regrets over what had happened in Iraq, almost the only point that the Prime Minister made in his reply was:
“Millions of children are getting the benefit of education, vaccination and health care services as a result”—[Official Report, 19 March 2008; Vol. 473, c. 916.]—
as if we went to war to ensure vaccination for the children of Iraq, and as if that somehow justified all the other terrible things that have happened in Iraq!
The Prime Minister knows perfectly well that that was a ridiculous justification for war, but no Ministers can now use the arguments that were made at the time. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Ministers know perfectly well that whatever the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs might have said, to argue for regime change in its own right is against international law, and could never possibly have the support of the UN. Ministers are scrabbling away trying to find convincing justifications, all to do with what a terrible man Saddam Hussein was, when they know perfectly well, as we do—we are not telling them anything that they do not already know—that that could not possibly have justified the war.
I want, too, to refer to the external consequences of the war. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) who, in a marvellous and colourful speech, made some powerful and appropriate points. The single greatest beneficiary of this disastrous Iraq war has been Iran. Two of Iran’s most powerful enemies were Saddam Hussein’s regime on one side, and the Taliban on the other. Never in their wildest moments did the Iranians believe that both regimes would be removed by the United States—the great Satan—without Iran having to lift a finger to achieve its geopolitical and strategic objectives.
One then has to add to the implications of Iran’s emergence as a regional power the terrible Shi’a-Sunni sectarian conflict, which does not now exist merely in Iraq, but is part of a regional problem that is distorting the politics of the middle east. Although those tensions would have existed without the war in Iraq, that war provided the opportunity for a massive loss of life and ethnic cleansing on an enormous scale in Iraq that certainly would not have happened otherwise.
Then let us look at the whole question of al-Qaeda. Even today, people such as Dick Cheney try to claim that there was some link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. We know perfectly well that al-Qaeda had no opportunity to develop its terrible deeds in Iraq until the power vacuum was created by the war initiated by the US and the UK. Perhaps most serious in terms of the next year or so is the fact that for the west and the international community, putting real effective pressure on Iran to desist from going down the nuclear weapons path is infinitely more difficult than it would otherwise have been. That is because of the massive loss of authority, credibility and power on the part of the US in particular, but also on the part of anyone who argues for tough measures with regard to these matters.
I want to draw attention to a crucial question. Iraq is not only terrible in itself, but it is the single biggest example so far of the consequences of what is known as the Bush doctrine—that pre-emptive wars can be justified—combined with Tony Blair’s Chicago speech, which tried to justify, under the name of liberal interventionism, the use of our armed forces to change regimes and, hopefully, in his view, to promote democracy around the world.
That comes to the heart of the question of what is and what is not a just war. The concept of a just war goes back many centuries, as people have struggled to try to find some set of criteria for when war can be justified, particularly against those who have not attacked first.
Traditionally, there have been five justifications for a just war. First, it must be started by a lawful authority: in the case of Iraq, that is a question of enormous controversy. Secondly, it has to be for a just cause, and we know that the reason why we went to war was not justified. Thirdly, it has to be a matter of good against evil—and I would be happy to concede that point, if it were the only relevant consideration. Fourthly, it has to be the last resort. Partly for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle, it clearly was not that in this case. Finally, there is the issue of proportionality.
In the modern world, we have to extend those propositions in two important ways. First and most crucially, if we are going to try to begin to justify a war against a country that has not attacked us—if we are not acting in self-defence, and especially if we do not have the mandate of the Security Council of the United Nations—it is crucial that as part of the justification for war we consider all the likely, possible or credible consequences of that war. I do not mean only the combat, but what may happen after the combat is over. Unlike in the mediaeval world, in the modern world a war is not an end in itself. In times gone by, there were wars, somebody won, somebody lost, the war ended and things went back to normal. The whole problem with Iraq has been the power vacuum created by the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and all the consequences that flowed from that.
I was very disturbed by the interview that Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, gave to Andrew Marr a week or so ago. He was asked whether he had known what was going to happen in Iraq. He said:
“I think that the trouble with Iraq was, we were kind of preparing for the wrong sort of aftermath. We made lots of preparations for humanitarian disaster, for the lack of water, you know for all that kind of thing.”
He spoke as if a lack of water was the only predictable consequence of sending an army into Iraq, removing the regime and creating a power vacuum.
When asked why there were not sufficient troops in Iraq, Jonathan Powell said:
“But no one was urging us to do that at the time. No one actually had that, that insight at the time. It would have been rather more useful if they’d told us then.”
Who is “they” supposed to be? This is the Prime Minister’s chief of staff speaking—the man closest to him, who we know worked with him in the preparation of British policy. He says that they made no attempt to consider the possible consequences of removing a Sunni-dominated regime in a country with a Shi’a majority. They did not consider what would be the consequence of removing the existing power structure and, as was entirely predictable, the Shi’a majority then demanding power. They made no attempt to consider the implications for Iran if its traditional enemy were removed by force. They made no attempt to consider the implications for Shi’a-Sunni sectarian conflict. It was not that they got it wrong. They had not studied the situation and come to an unjustified conclusion. If Mr. Powell is to be believed—and we have no reason to doubt him—they were so busy wondering about the water supplies that they gave no thought to such issues.
That suggests that we must learn from this experience that if one wishes to contemplate going to war in the modern world, and credibly to justify it as a just war, such consequences—which, in the case of Iraq, were not only predictable but predicted—must be taken into account and one must be prepared to live with the consequences. That is the first major change necessary to the just war theory to take account of modern circumstances.
The second consideration goes to the heart of the argument made constantly by the Prime Minister and other apologists for the war. They ask whether we would have liked Saddam Hussein to have remained in power. Would it, they ask, be better if Saddam Hussein were still there, as if somehow that was an argument in itself. Well, it is not, because in the modern world armed forces can be used in a more restricted way. Using the military does not only mean going to war. They can be used for peacekeeping, for peace enforcement, for containment in various ways or to impose a no-fly zone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle rightly pointed out, that was successfully being done in the 10 years before this terrible war began. Of course sanctions were not working perfectly, but Iraq’s military power had been emasculated, by the first Gulf war, by the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations, by the arms embargo that had been imposed, and by the no-fly zone that the United States and the United Kingdom were enforcing.
Those sanctions had been so successful that those Arab and middle eastern countries that had supported the first Gulf war, including Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt—which were happy to be allies of the United States and the United Kingdom, and who sent their armies to help to liberate Kuwait, because they recognised that Saddam Hussein was a threat to regional security—were not happy to send their armies or provide diplomatic or political support for the Iraq war of five years ago. They knew, as we all know, that Saddam Hussein’s regime had been emasculated. He was not a better man; he was still an evil man who would have like to do more evil, but he no longer had the capability to do so.
The lessons must be learned for the future, if this is not to be an entirely terrible experience. First, in trying to decide whether war is justified, we must look not only at the combat aspect, but at the political, economic and social consequences of any war that we may initiate. In Iraq we have seen terrible loss of life of hundreds of thousands of people, millions of refugees, and internal anarchy. Ministers know how terrible the situation is in Iraq, and they wish that it had never happened. They wish that different decisions had been made five years ago. They know that, although I do not expect them to say so.
The second lesson must be that the alternative to going to war is not, and never has been, doing nothing. Nor has it meant restricting oneself merely to economic, social or diplomatic pressure. There are other military means that can be used, including no-fly zones, embargoes, and various methods of peace enforcement. As we showed in Iraq until 2003, that can ensure regional peace and security. It was a messy solution and it might not have lasted for ever, but it did not even begin to be as terrible as what the people of Iraq have had to live through over the past five years.
May I say straight away what an irrepressible joy and pleasure it is to follow not just the person but the blazing erudition of the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), which was surpassed only just, perhaps, by the blazing erudition of the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell). I can tell both of them that at the conclusion of this debate I shall hand them my papers for marking, and I hope to do rather better than I have done in the past. I shall also have the pleasure of joining them both in the Lobby.
I believe not only that there must be an inquiry but that it is urgent and necessary, because this is a war without an apparent or defined end. There is no apparent or defined context of victory. What is victory in this war? We had a victory four years ago, and it is a gloomy symbiosis that the fourth anniversary of that victory marked the death of the 4,000th US serviceman in Iraq. He will not be the last; and nor will our next casualty be our last.
What is the victory that we seek? Is it the stable, secure state that is spoken of by the Prime Minister? What is a stable and secure state? Who decides when Iraq has become a stable and secure state, capable of its own government? I do not wish to be facile and flippant, but I remember when debating devolution that there were those who said that Wales was not a sufficiently stable and secure state to govern itself. So who decides, who sets out the parameter of when we can safely leave? If the Americans cannot leave, nor can we.
We hear what is said about the success, security and achievements of Basra, but it is necessary only to notice whence the trumpets of triumph and achievement come. They come from within the security of the British army base, miles from Basra. If a quarter of what we are told about Basra were true or reliable, British politicians would be making their speeches from within a liberated city and to a liberated people. They would not be arriving secretly at night at a base in order, as the world sees it, to posture in the safety of a British square. This is not a war that is anywhere near its termination, and that is why we cannot possibly wait until such time as that end occurs and by whose wish it occurs.
If it is to be said that we cannot have an inquiry because it imperils the military effectiveness and strategy of what we are doing in Iraq, that is a military judgment, not a political judgment. If our senior commanders, past or present, had said publicly that it would be ill-advised and dangerous for us to hold an inquiry, or if Ministers had said that the commanders had advised them in that way, I would respect what they said. If Generals Rose or Jackson said, “We must not have an inquiry now because of the danger that it will pose to our strategy and to our troops”, I would respect that and not vote for an inquiry. I shall not respect those who have interests in an inquiry, and those who are potential defendants in an inquiry, using the troops and strategy as an alibi in order to avoid one. That is precisely what we have seen.
The second reason why an inquiry is urgent is that we cannot rely on the British media and press properly to interrogate the responsibility for and causes of this war. One had looked forward on the fifth anniversary of the war to seeing a resurgence of activity and interest in the media. Many of us were horrified by what we saw in the past few weeks: a media obsessed not with what was happening in Iraq but with itself. People in the media were asking themselves, “Why did I support the war?” or “Why did I oppose it?” or looking at other members of the media and asking, “Why did he oppose it? Why did she support the war? What was wrong with us?” That exercise had scant relevance and showed no interest in the truth in Iraq.
Then came the worst part, the climax of that. I endorse what the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea said about interviews with Jonathan Powell. An even worse example was his interview with Jeremy Paxman on “Newsnight”. I am perfectly happy to make the resources of my chambers available to Mr. Jeremy Paxman if he wishes to brush up his skills in cross-examination, but I can inform him that the youngest pupil in my chambers knows very well that prosecuting counsel do not ask questions that approximate to “Are you really sure you’re not guilty?” When that is the question asked, one is a very long way away from the great pantheons of British advocacy, I can tell you that for nothing—particularly when it is followed by something like, “Do you have any regrets?” That, metaphorically, is very slow bowling outside the leg stump, particularly to somebody of the capacity of Mr. Jonathan Powell.
To make it even worse, one third of that interview was given up not to Iraq but to plugging Mr. Jonathan Powell’s book on Ireland. Baghdad is 2,805 miles from Belfast geographically, and a great deal further in culture and history and in terms of those who have died as a result of the military intervention. It is not in the same league.
I am motivated by what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. If I say the words Tim Razzall, cricket and that “Newsnight” programme, to which I happened to be a contributor last week, he will understand why.
What I found most revealing—this is also probably barrister speak—was that Jonathan Powell, when questioned repeatedly by Paxman, simply said that he was glad that Saddam Hussein was down and gone. We all are—but that was not the issue, was it?
I respectfully agree. The right hon. Gentleman has conveniently taken my next words from my mouth, because I was about to report to the House that that was indeed what Jonathan Powell said. The apologia that he gave for the war was that Saddam Hussein had gone. It is an apologia that we hear time and time again, and as a litany it begins to bear an uncomfortable relationship to the words of Napoleon the pig in Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, who at the end of the book informs the animals that their suffering and distress is in fact a paradise, because the farmer has been removed. Let us have no more of this, particularly those of us who spent many years campaigning against Saddam Hussein. We do not want to hear any more the idea that the distress to the Iraqi people and the 600,000 of them who have died is blood that was worth paying for an illegal occupation in 2003.
It was possibly the diversion into Ireland that prevented any serious investigation in that interview, or at all, of the main issues upon which an inquiry must centre. I wish to bring to the House’s attention just two, which are, for me, the most important two. I mention them also because they may be investigated without the slightest inconvenience to any diplomat in Iraq—which is now apparently the reason why we cannot have an inquiry—without the intervention of a single member of the armed forces; and without inconveniencing a single member of the security services, if that is something that exercises the House. They can be investigated only through the cross-examination and interrogation of those who were involved.
The first is what was revealed in the Downing street memo of July 2002, reported by The Sunday Times in an unusual contribution to the debate. It was recorded that at that meeting in Downing street in July 2002 Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of secret intelligence, or “C”, as he was known, had reported from America to the War Cabinet, which included Jonathan Powell, that:
“There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
In the same minute, it is recorded that the then Foreign Secretary, now the Lord Chancellor, said that it was clear that
“Bush had made up his mind to take military action…But the case was thin.”
The then Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, to whom I shall return in just a moment, is recorded as warning that justifying the invasion on legal grounds would be difficult.
That secret memorandum, of limited circulation and ordered to be destroyed thereafter, will become, I predict, one of the seminal documents when the history of warfare comes to be discussed. Not one single word of that document reached this House; not one single word reached the British people. Indeed, this House was told precisely the opposite: until the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, the case was made that there was still time to avert war and catastrophe. That was a lie, and a black deception to this House and to the British people.
I do not entirely agree with the palliative statements in the excellent speech made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) in opening the debate. The real point of the debate, and of any inquiry that may be held, is not to learn lessons so that we do not make mistakes again. That is one reason, but I want an inquiry to be held into the Iraq war because I want those responsible to be brought to book and to justice. If necessary, they should be brought to international justice, but I want us to be the ones who bring them to it.
I support the hon. and learned Gentleman’s argument with all the strength that I can muster, but may I remind him gently that some Opposition Members at the time took the view that he is expressing? I was one of those who resigned as a shadow Minister because of the illegal war. Does he agree that, when we look back at our parliamentary lives, we may well regard the decision to go to war with Iraq as the worst and most horrible decision that this Parliament has made?
That is undoubtedly right. Indeed, beside that decision, all our other achievements and deficiencies—and there have been many of both—pale into insignificance. The circumstances and repercussions of what we did then have swept well past Iraq. As Tacitus noted, one victory can create a thousand enemies, and that is precisely what happened.
I shall dwell briefly on the second matter, which is the written advice given by the Attorney-General to the Prime Minister on 7 March 2003. We are able to look at that advice now, even though it was obtained only in the teeth of those at the time who wished to keep it secret. Those people produced every form of spurious argument, based on dubious or non-existent precedent, that such advice should never be shown.
When we saw it, we found out why they wanted to keep it hidden. The advice was hedged around with doubt: it said that it was possible to argue that the invasion of Iraq was illegal but, two paragraphs later, that it was equally possible to argue that it was not. The advice then pointed out the number of challenges that could be brought, and the people who would bring them, if it turned out to be wrong.
One week later, on 14 March, the Attorney-General went to the Cabinet and to the House of Lords. Not one word of those doubts was set out to either. The House of Lords and the Cabinet received a completely different opinion. Furthermore, and even worse, the Attorney-General’s written opinion was buried. It was never shown or volunteered to the Cabinet—of course, its members should have asked for it, but they did not—or to the House of Lords. The advice was not given to this Chamber or made available to the British people. That must be made the subject of an inquiry, although I suspect that no such inquiry will be held during my time in the House. However, if the inquiry that is eventually held concludes that deception and deceit led us into an illegal war, then I hope that Parliament will deliver up to justice those who are responsible. That is inescapable.
I am a humanist. I do not believe in a final judgment, when our sins and misdemeanours will be read out of a great book. I suggest that this is the place for such things. However, if I did believe in judgment day—and particularly if I was a Catholic—and if I had been responsible for the deceit and duplicity that led to the slaughter in Iraq, I would be saying my Ave Marias as fast as diction would allow. It may be a pity that I do not believe in the final judgment, as I should like to be there to see it. However, I believe that we here must arrive at a quicker judgment, and that we, the British people and those who have suffered as a result of our actions, are entitled to that judgment sooner—much sooner—than later.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), who made a fine speech. There have been many fine speeches from those arguing in favour of the motions, although not so many from those who oppose them.
I shall begin as others have, by paying tribute to 175 British troops who have been killed in the Iraq war. I pay tribute, too, to the 4,000 US troops and the countless thousands of Iraqi civilians who have also died. The decisions that we made on 18 March 2003 are the most momentous that I have witnessed in my relatively short parliamentary career, but I am glad to say that I believe that, when history looks back, I and others will be found to have been on the right side.
I have always been interested in what Lady Macmillan said at the time of Suez. It was to the effect that, for several weeks, she felt as though the Suez canal went through her drawing room.
That was Lady Eden.
The hon. Gentleman reminds me that it was Lady Eden who said that, and I am grateful to him for once again correcting an historical inaccuracy.
There was a time in the run-up to the war when I felt that Iraq was dominating my life. In the months leading up to the conflict, I made three visits to the Gulf, two to the US and one to NATO. Since the war, I have been privileged enough to visit Iraq on four occasions. I want to share with the House what happened on my visit to US Central Command in Tampa on 21 August 2002.
I was told by the then Defence Secretary that I was the only member of the Opposition who had asked—and been allowed—to go to Tampa to meet Tommy Franks and his team as they prepared the invasion. General “Rifle” P. DeLong gave me a medal that I still carry, and he told me in great detail what was about to unfold in the middle east.
I had made a deal with the then Defence Secretary that I have always honoured. It was that I would never discuss what I was told that day at CENTCOM, before the action started. I reported my experiences to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy), and I shall share with the House this evening my two overriding memories from my meeting with General DeLong. Also present was a British general who I know, because I have discussed this matter with him since, is known to the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson).
The meeting took place in August 2002, and two overriding points were made to me. The first was that there would be a war. It was made clear that the US would invade Iraq in March or April of 2003—of that there was no doubt. The US wanted British troops to be involved, and American planning assumed that they would be. I was shown in candid and considerable detail what the role of the British troops would be, and one element of it was that Royal Marines would lead assaults that included US marines—something almost unheard of then.
From that point, I had no doubts at all that war was coming, but I was also told something else that was equally interesting—that all the US planning was predicated on the assumption that it would be a US-UK war. No thought was given to the possibility that Saudi, French or Syrian troops, in the sort of alliance that was built up to liberate Kuwait, would be used. The view of the US military, supported by their political masters, was that they did not want other troops involved—and that the UN was therefore totally pointless.
What I find incredible is that all the talk of attempting to get another resolution from the UN was irrelevant to the US military in Tampa, Florida, planning that assault; the war was going to happen in March or April 2003, and it would include only British and American troops. That gives the lie to some of the things that we were told in the run-up to the war—that we could possibly somehow avoid the catastrophe, and that somehow we wanted the international community to be involved. That simply was not going to be the case. When I visited troops massing in Kuwait and Bahrain, and warships in the Gulf, there was a strong belief among our armed forces that war would happen in March or April 2003. Of course, as we all now know, that was indeed the case.
The first result of the war was to make another war, Afghanistan, much more difficult. It has not so far been mentioned tonight that in the run-up to the Iraq war, urgent operational requirement orders—the emergency purchasing of kit—all related to Iraq. I firmly believe that the attempt to bolster, for understandable reasons, our forces preparing to go to Iraq damaged our actions and performance in Afghanistan, and it has continued to damage our performance there ever since. The reality is that we could not take on two such engagements, as the strategic defence review suggested we ought. That is perhaps the reason why we have failed, or have not yet achieved success, in both those engagements.
The lasting legacy of the war was the fact that the great coalition of the international community, built up to fight international terrorism since 2001—when even the front page of Paris newspapers said, “We are all Americans now, after the tragic events of 2001”—was thrown asunder. Suddenly it was not the world versus terrorism; it was large parts of the world against America, and large parts of the world against Britain. Those two consequences of the war—first our continued failure in Afghanistan and secondly the rift in the international community that has still not yet been settled—are legacies of the vote that took place on 18 March.
What was very apparent at the time, and what motivated many of us who voted against the war, was that it would inflame Muslim opinion. That was so obvious, and every single diplomatic source told us that. The tragedy of the event is that that advice was ignored.
The hon. Gentleman is indeed right, and I was going to mention the fact that in the weeks after the attack on Iraq, in the ceremony in which children are named in Islam—forgive me for not knowing the term; in Christianity we call it the christening—the name Osama was given to more boys born in the Islamic world than any other name; I think that proves the hon. Gentleman’s point.
What should the inquiry cover? Well, there are a number of things that it must cover, if it happens, and I sincerely hope that it does. I hope that many Labour Members will again join us in the Division Lobby this evening to see that it does happen. The first thing that it should cover is the aftermath of the war. Anybody who believes that large parts of Iraq are better now than they were under Saddam Hussein certainly is not talking to some of the service people to whom I talk, and has not experienced some of the things that I have experienced in my four visits in the past five years.
The first time I went to Basra, we drove in soft-skinned vehicles with Royal Marines with berets on their heads, and we felt safe. We got out and talked to people on the streets. The last time I went to Iraq, we were holed up in armoured vehicles, flying by helicopter and living in reinforced bunkers on air bases because the Ministry of Defence was too scared to let us on to the streets. Unfortunately, as was excellently described by the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), the lives of many ordinary people in Iraq are probably worse than they were under Saddam Hussein.
The Red Cross says so.
As the hon. Gentleman mentions, that is exactly what the Red Cross says. I think that the aftermath of the war needs to be considered. We could have predicted it. People on the Liberal Democrat Benches, notable exceptions on the Conservative Benches, and very many notable exceptions on the Labour Benches—[Interruption.]—and the nationalists warned the Government that the consequences of the action would be appalling, yet, I am afraid, one Conservative Front-Bencher who is sitting in the Chamber described me as an appeaser, and described my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber as Charlie Chamberlain. That was the kind of abuse that was being thrown at us when we warned of the consequences.
A second aspect that must be considered, mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Medway, is the legality of the war. I have never wanted to say that the war was illegal, because if I did, I would be suggesting that the British forces who went to Iraq were complicit in some kind of war crime, but certainly the legality of the war, and the justification by Lord Goldsmith, conveniently changed considerably in a 10-day period in the run-up to the war. There are many reasons to believe that under international law, the action, if not illegal, certainly pushed the bounds of legality in ways never experienced before. As the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said when expressing his view of what a just war is, Iraq could not be considered a just war. It is absolutely right that we examine whether the war was legal or not. After all, what other reason is there why Lord Boyce—then Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff—sought the Prime Minister’s personal guarantee that the war was legal? He surely would only have done so if he had some doubts.
The next thing that we must surely ask—it is a question that I asked consistently at the time—is whether we were equipped to fight the war, and whether we had the right equipment. Certainly the troops that I saw preparing to fight the war did not have the body armour, the boots or the equipment to make sure that they could fight the war. Sadly, that is a view shared in many coroners’ inquests held since the war. We are not talking about a war that suddenly occurred; it was not like the Falklands, where we suddenly woke up one morning and said, “Oh my God, we’ve got to perform an amphibious action on the other side of the world.” We are talking about a war for which we were preparing, month after month, yet we sent our troops away inadequately kitted out. Certainly some inquests have suggested that some of our servicemen died as a result of not being properly equipped. What more serious criterion could there be by which to judge the value of a conflict? We are talking about a Government who sent their troops off, knowing that they were going to fight, without giving them the equipment with which to fight that war.
We have tonight heard references to weapons of mass destruction. There might have been such weapons years before, but certainly there were not weapons of mass destruction available to Saddam Hussein, ready to fire within 45 minutes, that could hit our bases in Cyprus; let us remember that the dossier suggested the contrary, as did the front page of the Evening Standard. They suggested that there was somehow an immediate threat to British troops based in Cyprus, and a threat to the troops who were about to fight—the troops whom, let me remind hon. Members, we had not properly equipped.
Reference has been made to Lord Franks and his inquiry after the Falklands. That was an inquiry on the workings of Government. I would certainly be happy if the inquiry that will eventually take place covered the workings of Opposition parties. I would certainly be prepared to stand by what we, as an Opposition party, did to oppose the war. Frankly, her Majesty’s loyal Opposition failed to oppose it in the way that they should have done. It is a matter of record that before Christmas in 2002, the then leader of the Conservative party was calling for military action to overthrow Saddam. That was before the dossier and before any talk of weapons of mass destruction. The Tories, and unfortunately their leader at the time, were as much cheerleaders for the war as any Member on the Treasury Bench.
Not all of us; not all of us.
Not every Conservative, and I certainly pay tribute to those who were not.
I want to make two more points. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) said that we went off to fight the war because of the appalling things that Saddam Hussein had done, and the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested the same thing. On one of my visits to Iraq, I was stopped by a sergeant from the Parachute regiment, who said, “Sir, why am I ’ere? I didn’t join the British Army to do this. I joined it to protect my family, to make sure that they were safe, to ensure that our country is protected, not to go off and fight war at the behest of the President of the United States, endorsed by the Prime Minister.” I have to tell the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley that there may have been a very good reason for attacking Saddam Hussein on humanitarian grounds, but it is easy to stand here and call for that action; it is less easy for someone who has joined the armed forces with the aim of protecting their country not to go off and fight someone else’s war.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that bizarre arguments were made in the Chamber by the two Back-Bench Members who opposed an inquiry, especially as they could not say where we should draw the line, and which obnoxious regimes we would tolerate and which we would decide to send the armed forces in to topple?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea set out the reasons why a humanitarian war might be justified. Kosovo springs to mind: it was a conflict that my party and I supported, because there were clear reasons for doing so. We simply could not say that, however, about Iraq. If we did, we would say it about Zimbabwe and a host of other countries, in which we simply should not get involved.
Finally, the one thing we know is that sooner or later, there will be another conflict. Another Secretary of State and another Prime Minister will come to the House to ask us to support military action. The first thing that some hon. Members will say—and the first thing that our constituents will say—is, “Is this another Iraq? Are we going to be fooled, like we were fooled then?” At some point in future, there will be a war that we will have to fight, and from which we will shy away, simply because of what happened in Iraq. 9/11 started the process. I was in the Commons with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber on 9/11. We saw the skies being cleared, and we watched the aftermath on television. Once 9/11 had happened, George Bush had the authority in the US to do what he wanted to do, and settle his debts with Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, the previous Prime Minister went along with that. Unfortunately, the main Opposition party—or most of it—went along with it, and the result is the biggest disaster for British foreign policy that has occurred not only in my lifetime but in the lifetime of much more senior Members of Parliament. We should be ashamed, collectively, of what we did by sending our troops into Iraq. I hope that tonight we will start the process of atonement, and the only way in which we can begin to do so is to have a full, proper inquiry into the events leading up to war.
I intended my remarks to be short, and I shall still try to keep them brief.
I should like to take the Chamber back to the original debate. Members who were there will recall that it was a lengthy day. There was a main Question, and there was an amendment. The text of the amendment was originally proposed by Lord Smith, who was then the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury. A number of Labour Members got together to consider the text, and it was thought by some—principally me—that it was slightly inappropriate, and needed to be changed. Collectively, those Members decided to accept my suggestion, and that has a bearing on what I will come on to say. The text of the amendment was, in a way, the result of consideration by myself.
I sat all day through that debate, and I left the Chamber only twice—once to visit the rest room and get a cup of tea, and the other time, to respond to a summons from the then Prime Minister to his chambers behind the Chair. He called me singly. I had to wait to go in alone, whereas other Members went in in groups. A group went ahead of me, and a group followed me after I had finished. I was with the Prime Minister for about 25 minutes, and he was clearly in some distress. He begged me to support him on the amendment, but I pointed out that I was voting for the amendment. He said, “No, no, no—I need you to vote against it.” I said, “You don’t really need my vote. The Conservatives are going to support you on the amendment anyway, so you’re going to romp it.” He said, “I want to win it with Labour votes.” I said, “I’m sorry, Tony, you can’t have mine.” “Why not?” he said. I said, “For a start, I have sat in the Chamber for over four hours today, and I was informed by the Chair as I came out to see you that I didn’t have a chance of being called to speak, because I spoke for four minutes on the debate that was called during the recall of Parliament last year, for which I had to travel across the Atlantic, before going back again.” Four minutes in one year denied me any opportunity to register my views at that time.
I said, “Apart from that, I am partly responsible for the words on the Order Paper. I can hardly vote against my own text.” The Prime Minister pleaded, pleaded and pleaded, but I said, “I just can’t do it. I can’t even apologise for it, because that’s it.” The amendment, as the House will recall, said that Hans Blix and team be given time to finish the job with which they had been tasked. Blair said, “I really need your support.” He was distressed—he was chalk white, and was visibly shaking—so I said, “Tony, the best thing I can do for you is, once the amendment is defeated, although I would like to think that it won’t be, on the basis of clause stand part, I will vote for the main Question.” That is what I did, and I have to tell the House what I have told one or two people privately: from that day to this, I have regretted it to the bottom of my heart, and I am deeply ashamed that I allowed myself to do it.
As I went through the Lobby in the Division on the main Question, I got a slap on the back. Some Members will remember that I had trouble with my shoulders. Left wing, right wing—they were both troublesome at different times. I got a slap on my bad wing—my left wing; Blair was always keen to hurt the left wing. When I turned round, ready to use my right wing to reply to this pain, Blair was standing against the bookcase, still white, still quivering. All he said was, “Thanks, Frank.”
In a way, I am relieved that I have had the opportunity to confess openly to that this evening, but let me come to the question of an inquiry. I do not think that anyone is arguing about the need for one, and I do not think that anyone will argue about its breadth or the depth to which we should pursue it. There is great agreement on that, because it needs to start as early as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) said, and it needs to cover all the things that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) covered, and lots more besides.
But the question is when, and I am still not convinced that now is the time. Let me explain why. I was brought up as a child when there were big posters on the wall which read, “Careless talk costs lives”. We have been talking about previous inquiries, such as the Dardanelles in 1917—that was when nations were fighting nations—and Norway, when it was no more than a debate. We are not fighting nations now and we are not seeking a debate.
We are dealing with al-Qaeda, and with al-Qaeda we must deal with al-Jazeera. We have all experienced their great technique in handling modern communications. We have seen how skilfully they can misrepresent, and even now I can guarantee that they will be misrepresenting the kind of debate that this has become and the kind of self-justifying statements that have been bellowed across the Chamber.
I sympathise with the sergeant in the paras. Of course I do—my boy is in the Army. We care about every one of them, but we must make sure that we do not give hostages to fortune, and that we do not give encouragement to the terrorists that we are trying to combat. Let us not forget that not only is it not nation against nation, but we have the enemy in our midst. There was not only 9/11; there was 7/7 in a London bus and in a tube station, and we are creating enemies within our own communities by talking in this way.
Whatever inquiry takes place must be conducted on the right basis and must not be conducted in haste. I understand that we have the problems that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) has suddenly discovered in the past 15 months, in going ahead with an inquiry, and I commend him for recognising those problems. “It is not a trial,” he said, “or an impeachment.” On that basis, if he were running the inquiry, I could go along with it, but do you think that the Daily Mail would allow it to remain not a trial and not an impeachment? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway has already said that we cannot rely on the media. Well, we can, you know. They will make the worst of it that they possibly can, for their own political ends.
I have been listening to my hon. Friend with considerable respect. I respect what he says, but if we are to allow fear or trepidation of al-Qaeda to dictate when we have our inquiries, when in truth will we have one?
Like any sensible inquiry, it would commence once there had been a cessation of hostilities. Cessation of hostilities occurred when we signed peace agreements or when we declared an armistice. That is not possible with al-Qaeda, because we are creating more of them every day. As long as the terms used are those that have been used in the Chamber tonight, we have no more chance of getting a fair and free inquiry than I can fly, and I cannot and never will fly—alone, that is.
Yes, I support an inquiry, but not now.
I appreciate many of the points that the hon. Gentleman is making, but given the tenacity of terrorism in our society—I look at the situation in Northern Ireland where, for 35 years, terrorists were able to hold the country to ransom—does the hon. Gentleman accept that if, as he argued, we cannot have an inquiry until there is a cessation of hostilities, it could be 30 years before we ever examine some of the events that we are discussing?
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. With Bloody Sunday, it was 30 years. We did not have an inquiry into Bloody Sunday until we had a Labour Government. By holding an inquiry while hostilities continue, we would be creating more ammunition for further hostilities. I well recall that we always thought that the Irish question would never be resolved. Perhaps it has not been resolved yet, but we are a sight nearer to that than we ever were before.
Like everybody else, I am in favour of an inquiry, and like most of us in the Chamber, I want it to be as wide as possible, but to have it now would be the height of lunacy. I want to vote for the inquiry. Why? Because I want to achieve the final catharsis of the confession that I have made tonight. I look forward to doing so when I can, but that is not now.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook). He has long taken an interest in these matters and I found his account of how he voted in 2003 moving because it exposed many of the dilemmas that many hon. Members faced. I confess that I did not. I was reasonably clear about what I was going to do. I supported the Government’s motion and I shall come to an explanation of that later in my remarks.
I seriously disagree with the hon. Gentleman, however. The idea that we would give comfort to al-Qaeda by avoiding accountability through an inquiry or through the processes of the House is wrong. Let us consider what is happening in al-Qaeda in Iraq. I have a godson who is commanding an American infantry platoon in Iraq. He is about halfway through a 15-month tour and has very nearly been killed twice in the time that he has been there. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that al-Qaeda in Iraq is on the way to defeat. Further down the road there may be many more serious problems arising from the Sunni-Shi’a divisions in Iraq and the movement of Iraqis for power, but we are witnessing success.
One of the reasons why we need an inquiry into Iraq is surely that al-Qaeda was not in Iraq when we first invaded. That must be one of the basic reasons why we need a study of what went wrong.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
There have been many brilliant speeches in the debate and I do not want to repeat arguments that have already been made by others much more ably than I could. I shall pick up one or two of the points that have been made and try to add to the arguments, and then come to my own perspective.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) said that an inquiry now might end as an indictment of the Government’s decision in 2003 and that would have consequences for our troops in Iraq. Our troops are now in Iraq on a wholly different legal basis from that in 2003 when they entered the war. They are there now on the basis of a United Nations Security Council resolution, at the invitation of the Iraqi Government. That argument does not hold water.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I shall make a little progress, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me.
From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) said, in reference to Iraq and Afghanistan, that the situation was different altogether. I could not disagree more strongly. I shall come to the direct parallels that exist—particularly in respect of the overlap between our policies towards the police and the army in Iraq. We have totally failed to provide proper training for the police in Iraq; I shall come to that, and to what is happening in Afghanistan now, later in my remarks.
The saddest speech that we have witnessed in this debate was the Foreign Secretary’s. To say that the events today in Basra are an example of why we should not be having an inquiry now is to say the opposite of the truth. In Basra at the moment, what the Iraqi army is having to mete out to the militias—and, to a degree, to the Basra police, who are completely infiltrated by the militias—is a precise example of what I am talking about, because it all flows from British policy and action, in Basra in particular, in the past five years.
The most amusing part of the Foreign Secretary’s response came when my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) made it clear that the Mesopotamia inquiry entirely destroyed his arguments about the Dardanelles inquiry; the Foreign Secretary’s defence was that the shadow Foreign Secretary had not mentioned the Dardanelles in his argument in chief. The Foreign Secretary went on to say that the wisdom of the Foreign Office would always be taken into account. In the light of what happened in 2003, that statement is pretty amazing: the legal adviser to the Foreign Office resigned; a previous Foreign Secretary resigned from the Government; my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the Foreign Secretary previous to Robin Cook, was against the war; and scores of retired ambassadors with experience in the region made public their opposition to the war.
The hon. Gentleman said that we are now in Iraq on a different basis, and he is absolutely correct. The motion asks for an inquiry into the Iraq war. We are not at war with Iraq today; we are in a different situation—a mess created in the aftermath of the war. The war is over, so there is no reason for not having an inquiry now.
I agree. The Government’s arguments are manifestly absurd; in respect of time scale, they are like rejecting an inquiry into Dunkirk just after VE-day because we are going to engage in fighting the Japanese, which might be a distraction. It is five years since this unhappy adventure was embarked on. In 1945, one could have said that an inquiry into Dunkirk would be entirely irrelevant and a matter for the historians. However, I am afraid that an inquiry into the events leading up to the Iraq war, and into our policy on the occupation since, is extremely relevant to what we continue to do—not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan and in other conflicts in future. We cannot wait any longer; Government Ministers have only to read Hansard, listen to this debate and see where the strength of argument is coming from to know that in their heart of hearts.
The hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) has the honour of chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee. He talked about R2P, the right to protect. That all links in with the Chicago doctrine and the whole idea of liberal interventionism. It is absolutely essential that we inquire into how we got into the situation and into the arguments put forward to justify our actions.
In a customarily brilliant speech—on this occasion without any specialist advice, I am impressed to say—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea referred to Jonathan Powell’s statement that he and others did not know that more troops would be needed. I am afraid that that argument does not wash. The previous chief of the US army staff told Donald Rumsfeld that more troops would be required and that the forces provided were wholly inadequate for the occupation; his reward was to be sidelined and shuffled out. We should honour him for the fact that he did give advice. The Americans cannot say—nor can the British at the most senior levels—that they did not receive serious advice that the strategy on which we were embarked was wrong.
I agree with nearly all that my right hon. and learned Friend said. He was certainly right that containment was working and that sanctions were not. When I worked for my right hon. and learned Friend at the Foreign Office, it was my view that at some point we would have to face up to the failure of the oil-for-food programme. That is why I have significant sympathy for people such as the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). When they voted for the Government motion in 2003, that was about business unfinished since the ceasefire in 1991.
From what I know of it, the legal case presented by the then Attorney-General hung round the failure of Iraq to observe the terms of the 1991 ceasefire. The argument made to the people of the United States was that the issue was about al-Qaeda—it was painfully apparent that that was false. The problem was that that argument could not be made in the United Kingdom, as we had not been attacked by al-Qaeda. Of course, here the arguments made were that it was about weapons of mass destruction.
We need an inquiry to identify what happened in the decision-making process. I want to know how it is that I, as a Member of Parliament, ended up voting for the Government’s resolution. I watched the performances of the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, probably from right where I am standing now, in September 2002 and in March 2003. I thought that I knew when he was not being entirely direct with the House and that I could spot when things were different. Those performances were of a totally different quality from anything that he had produced on any other occasion in the House of Commons, and he was always a fantastic performer in this Chamber. He really believed it, and that was what I was being told by friends of mine who remained in the Army and were briefing him to say that he was entirely up for this and convinced of its necessity. I am afraid that that faith in its necessity, combined, it would appear, with the faith of the President of the United States in its necessity, and the opportunity presented by 9/11 to move on to unfinished business in Iraq, blinded senior policy makers at all levels to the consequences of what they were doing.
I want to know the detail of what happened in October 2001 in the discussions between Rumsfeld and Cheney and at senior levels of the Bush Administration about 9/11 providing the opportunity to “do” Iraq. I want the then Prime Minister questioned about what happened in Crawford, Texas in April 2002, when the United Kingdom became irredeemably committed to that course of action. All the policies that flowed from that decision, with British officers getting involved in CENTCOM and the planning that took place during the summer, meant that by July 2002 the thing was rolling down a military track and was not going to stop. I do not know when the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) received his briefing from CENTCOM, but my understanding would be that this was happening six months before he went there. Everything was running to a military timetable in order to get the invasion of Iraq under way in spring because people would not have wanted to delay it until the summer, for entirely understandable military reasons. At that point, the military timetable overtook all the other considerations. The doubts that were being thrown in about the intelligence and other issues became irrelevant to the key policy makers as they drove the process forward.
An important lesson that an inquiry should be able to get to the bottom of is how we can put the brakes on at a policy-making level inside Government and in Parliament. Today, the Justice Secretary came to the House to explain about this Chamber’s involvement in war-making votes in future. That is of direct relevance to an inquiry. For ex-soldiers like me, it was not realistic to ask me to vote about 12 hours—or 36 hours; I cannot remember now—before H-hour and troops going over the front line, and to pull the plug on a huge operation that had been months in the planning by suddenly saying, “Sorry, the British aren’t coming.” We were providing more than a third of the forces to invade southern Iraq; the military and strategic decisions had been taken. We were placed in an impossible position. Immediately before the soldiers were committed to action, with their battle procedure almost complete for going across the starting line, we were being invited to pull the rug out from underneath them. That would have been another consideration of mine in deciding to support the Government.
My view was that that the Saddam Hussein issue had to be resolved and that 9/11 had given the President of the United States the freedom of manoeuvre to act on Iraq and resolve it; that is why I supported the action. I should have followed the advice from slightly wiser quarters like those whom I previously worked for and with in the Foreign Office. I was profoundly wrong in not identifying the consequences that we have unleashed on the middle east and the world.
We need an inquiry to understand the damage done to the United Kingdom’s position in the middle east. I take a significant interest in the region and travel there frequently. Wherever one goes there, one finds that friends of the UK are appalled at our failure to exercise more influence on the United States throughout the course of the disastrous strategy leading up to the invasion and during the conduct of the occupation as well. They expected much more of the United Kingdom, given our history and our association with the region. Tragically, we utterly failed to deliver and our standing in the middle east has taken a hammering as a result. It is vital to the British interest that we somehow address that damage to our standing and start to put it right.
As my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary made clear, books on the subject are now being published by figures such as Sir Hilary Synnott. Rory Stewart wrote an excellent book on the conduct of the occupation in Iraq, Paul Bremer has burst into print, and so has the former chief of the general staff—everyone is writing their account. We need an inquiry so that senior Members of both Houses can bring together all that testimony in a sensible, disciplined way, as proposed by the motion, to try to draw the sensible lessons we must learn from the appalling tragedy that has overtaken Iraq as a consequence of our policy.
Finally, I want to turn to today’s events in Basra, which was one of the arguments advanced by the Foreign Secretary as to why now is not the time for an inquiry. In April 2004, I and other members of the Defence Committee were taken to Basra, and we were proudly shown British police officers, and Northern Ireland police officers, training Iraqi policemen. We were taken to three different police stations—it took up about half of the time we had in Basra—where we were shown different groups of policemen going through riot training and so on. But even with the level of investment we had put into training police in Basra, we completely failed to avoid their being highly penetrated by militias competing for power there.
If we had given our international development aid to one thing alone, it should have been to payment of the police to get control of their human resources policy. We could then have sacked people who did not match our standards. If we had paid the police at the same rates paid to police in the UK, we would have achieved an enormous amount more than we did in the past five years. The importance of how the police are treated in the establishment of the rule of law in a country was a lesson learned in Bosnia. We have identified that problem all too plainly in Iraq, and we are making the same mistake in Afghanistan now.
The police in Afghanistan are highly corrupt and in the hands of drugs barons and local warlords. The entire shop in Afghanistan is bet on the Afghan national army at some point being able to face down the police forces around the country in order to retake control for the central Government.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
If the Minister will forgive me, I have about 20 seconds left, and I will not get any extra time as I usually would.
I know that the Government understand this point; it is a lesson to which they will need to direct significant resources. A proper inquiry into what has gone wrong in Iraq will strengthen the Government’s hand in making their case for what we need to do in Afghanistan.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), who spoke lucidly and forcefully. At one time, he was my deputy in Northern Ireland and in those days we used to agree with each other rather more frequently than we do now, but I shall endeavour to explain why I find myself rather a long way from him on this issue.
I shall focus narrowly on two issues. I shall not focus on whether we should have taken military action in Iraq or on the issues that ought to be the subject of an eventual inquiry, or even on whether we ought to have an inquiry at some stage. That is common ground in the House, which has emerged clearly from the debate. The issues I shall focus on are why we are having the debate on this motion, and on the arguments for having an inquiry now rather than later—and even more importantly, the arguments for not having one now.
The reason for tabling the motion has not been addressed. Anyone who listened to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) when he introduced the debate, and attempted to take his words seriously and at face value, would suppose that the Conservative party had invented the idea of an inquiry on the military operation in Iraq and had consistently been in favour of it. Nothing of the kind is the case. The Welsh and the Scottish nationalists devised the idea. At the time, I was a member of the Conservative party and I assumed, based on the party’s reaction to such things in past years, or at least in past generations, that, as soon as it saw such opportunistic and irresponsible nonsense emerging on the horizon, it would reject it without further ado. To my horror, I found that that is not the way in which the modern Tory party works.
The modern Tory party sees a bandwagon, thinks it might pick up some short-term party political benefit, and, without caring about the issue, jumps straight on it. I expressed my public disagreement in 2006 with the Tory party’s conduct on the important matter that we are discussing. I think that the Tories were a bit miffed and felt that they had missed a trick—“trick” is the right word for such a ploy—because the Scottish and the Welsh nationalists had thought of the idea first. They were determined to appropriate it if they could and, on another Opposition day last June, they tabled a motion calling for an inquiry, taking credit for the idea themselves.
Why does an inquiry have such appeal for the Conservative party? The answer is plain. The Conservative party voted overwhelmingly for military action in Iraq and I was part of that—I had better say that now so that there is no doubt about it. I was a member of the shadow Cabinet when we decided to support the Government on the matter, for reasons that I do not regret. However, leaving that aside, the Conservative party has that record and cannot do anything about it. On the other hand, it has noticed that the Iraq war is not popular and would like to gain some party political advantage from that and attack the Government.
How do the Conservatives attack the Government without saying that they were wrong about the Iraq war and facing some humiliation for doing that? The answer is that they call for an inquiry—which is irresponsible for reasons that I shall outline shortly, and could not realistically be accepted by any remotely responsible Government—and thus gain some short-term party political advantage. Such conduct from a major party and pretended alternative Government is beneath contempt. It is one of the major reasons that I do not sit on the Conservative side of the House any more.
Let me consider why I believe that it would be irresponsible to hold an inquiry now. There are three reasons. First, there is a general principle that, when one’s military forces are engaged in combat, one can responsibly do only two things: support them to the hilt or pull them out. It is impossible to be half pregnant; there is no easy halfway house. A public inquiry is not a Select Committee inquiry—in democratic countries, Select Committees always have the right to conduct an inquiry into anything, of course. It is not an inquiry into a matter, albeit important in itself, that is marginal to the main issue, such as the death of Dr. Kelly. An official public inquiry into whether we should be in a particular place, when we are asking our serving men and women to risk their lives there, is inconceivable and wrong. We should not even think about doing such a thing.
We owe it to our troops—we all agree about how extraordinarily gallant they have been—not to sow the seeds of doubt about the rationale for their being in that situation and putting their lives at risk, which they do every day. There are strong reasons for not pulling out of Iraq now. We cannot let down the nascent Iraqi democracy, which has a chance of success. I do not know how great the chance is—perhaps not overwhelming, but certainly not minuscule. We owe Iraqi democracy a chance. We also owe it to our allies not to let them down, particularly when the Americans have bravely launched their surge campaign, which has yielded encouraging results.
Those are good reasons why we can legitimately ask our serving men and women to continue to risk their lives in Iraq, but we should not raise any doubt. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook) so eloquently said, the signal that we would send out by starting such an inquiry at this time would be amplified and distorted by the press in this country and, no doubt, by malevolent forces in the middle east. That is a major reason of constant principle why we should never do such a thing.
I am glad to say that we are a democracy that, traditionally, has been extraordinarily responsible in its conduct of anything to do with our armed forces, and we have never dreamt of holding such an inquiry at such a time before. We have already heard the examples of the Dardanelles campaign, when the inquiry did not take place until the year after, the Franks report on the Falklands conflict, which did not take place until the Argentines had surrendered, and the Norway debate, which was just a debate, of course. There was some doubt about that in the minds of those on the Opposition Front Bench, so let me remind them that the debate took place several weeks after the last British soldier and sailor had been withdrawn from Narvik. There is no doubt that that consideration has been a constant principle, and it should remain one.
Secondly, there is the practical issue of interrupting operations on the ground by having to question soldiers, sailors and airmen who are currently involved in the campaign. That is not an overwhelming consideration, but it is a real one. It is not true that if we had such an inquiry, we would not need to question those engaged in operations in Iraq. Very much to the contrary: General Rollo, who is currently the deputy commander of coalition forces in Iraq, served in Iraq—in a two-star role, if I recall—a few years ago. He is exactly the sort of person who most certainly would need to be summoned back to such an inquiry. What an extraordinarily irresponsible thing it would be to summon the deputy commanding officer in the middle of a campaign to be interrogated by the Privy Council, presumably in public.
The third reason has not been raised this evening, but it is possibly the most overwhelming one of all. If we were to have an honest public inquiry, and if we were to say that the electorate and the public had a right to know all the detail and that the truth would all come out—that is the only honest basis on which to have an inquiry, and I hope to God that we would never have a public inquiry in this country that was anything other than honest—we would have to go into all the issues that determine the success, the limited success, the failure or otherwise of the operation in Iraq. That includes matters such as logistics, capabilities and tactics, as well as intelligence, which is vital in any counter-insurgency or counter-terrorist campaign.
Are we going to have a public inquiry telling al-Qaeda and all the militia in Iraq how good or how bad our intelligence is, has been or may continue to be? Do we want to tell them the breakdown of our intelligence among signals intelligence, visual surveillance and human intelligence? Do we want to tell them how good our infiltration of terrorist or insurgent operations might be or how good we estimate their infiltration of the Iraq defence forces or police has been? Are we really going to go into those matters?
Are even those on the Front Bench of the modern Conservative party, in its appalling state of mind—in its complete rejection of any sense of responsible government and its willingness to try to make political capital irrespective of the importance or the sanctity of the issues involved—seriously going to tell the House tonight that we should go into all those issues in public now, thereby giving comfort and support to our enemies who desire the death of our servicemen and women who are deployed in theatre? I trust that the whole House will give a resounding negative answer to that question.
rose—
Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I tell hon. Members that we are planning to start the wind-ups at half-past 9? Three speakers are seeking to catch my eye, and I would be extremely grateful if they would tailor their contributions to that time scale.
My goodness, we know how threadbare the Government’s case is on Iraq when the only Back-Bench speaker who has resolutely and staunchly supported the Government Front-Bench position is a Conservative party switcher who has changed sides in the House—that famous socialist, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies).
I would like to highlight two other speakers, however. Most of us who have taken the time to be in the Chamber throughout the day cannot but have been moved in no small order by the contributions of the hon. Members for Stockton, North (Frank Cook) and for Reigate (Mr. Blunt). We heard from the hon. Member for Stockton, North of the personal challenge of being spoken to by his Prime Minister and of being appealed to over his own conscience to back his own Government. That is the most difficult situation for any politician in any political party, and it took some guts for him to come to the House and say that he had been wrong. I respect him immensely for that. The hon. Member for Reigate described similar experiences in wrestling with his conscience.
I want to start by praising all those in the service community who serve in our name. I represent more servicemen and women than any other Member of Parliament from Scotland, and I do so with great pride, regardless of where those personnel come from. Members of the House will recognise that I would wish to organise Scotland’s defence in line with that of all normal, independent countries. All those people have served and put their lives on the line, whether they are from Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Ireland, and I do not forget those from other nations, including Fiji, South Africa and the Irish Republic, who have died in our name.
It is worth putting it on the record that the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru were opposed to the war from the start, and it is worth remembering that we have been calling for an inquiry from the start. We have used the limited time that we have at our disposal in the House of Commons to hold a debate on 9 March 2004 on publication of the Attorney-General’s advice. My colleague, the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), led persuasively in that debate. We were then the first political party to offer our own time in the cause of pursuing an inquiry, which we did on 31 October 2006. Interestingly, the wording of the motion on that occasion was drawn together by Members on both sides of the House in order to ensure maximum support.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I want to make some progress in order to give other Members time to speak. I will therefore decline the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I hope that he will understand.
Now, on this, the third opportunity, I hope that many Labour Members will, for the first time, vote for an inquiry.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I will give way, as the hon. Gentleman might not get the chance to speak.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am a bit of a recidivist on this, so I will once again be voting for an inquiry. Should we not be successful tonight, however, will he confirm that this issue will be returned to, in the spirit of Members of all parties who are in favour of an inquiry being signatories to the motion?
I am happy to confirm that the Scottish National party will continue to co-operate with members of all parties and none on this issue. We will look at using our parliamentary time if we need to bring this matter back.
I want briefly to go through the case for an inquiry. I believe that we need one because we need to learn the lessons of why we went to war in the first place. That is an obvious point, both domestically and internationally, for all of us who support the international community and the institution of the United Nations. We also need to learn the lessons regarding rebuilding. This is work in progress; it is ongoing. There are lessons to be learned. Surely that is important for the people of Iraq, so if we are going to learn lessons that are important for the people of Iraq, please let us get on with it. Many of them live in the most extreme circumstances, and we need to learn those lessons as soon as possible in order to assist those people. We also need to learn the military lessons, because our service personnel and those from other countries are there, whether or not we supported their presence in the first place. Surely learning lessons would help our troops in the field.
The case against an inquiry has possibly been the most unconvincing case that I have heard in my time in the House of Commons. I usually find the Foreign Secretary, who is no longer in his place, extremely persuasive. He is a good and engaging speaker, but today he was sent out to bat with a broken bat—[Interruption.] And on a sticky wicket. He was unconvincing; he did not convince even Government Members on the issue.
Some people have suggested that having an inquiry would undermine the efforts of our service community while on operations. Goodness me, that has not prevented the US from having a host of inquiries. If that was true for the US, surely it is true for us. Neither has such a problem stopped the UK in the past, as we have heard a number of examples showing precedent whereby inquiries have been allowed to take place. If it is to be argued that we should not have inquiries in times of conflict, let me remind those who have not been to the Imperial War museum that one of the first items one sees there underlines the fact that there has been only one year since 1945 when the UK has not had service personnel in combat situations. The argument put forward by a few Government Members as to why we should not have an inquiry now or in the immediate future is, frankly, given that troops serving in our name are in permanent conflict situations, an argument for never having an inquiry.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I would be delighted to do so.
In expressing his concern for British troops, will the hon. Gentleman take the opportunity to remind the House that senior members of his party refer to the Union Jack as the butcher’s apron and that only today active members of his party were looking forward to the day when they could burn the Union Jack in Scotland?
The hon. Gentleman has been in the Chamber for only the smallest part of our proceedings today, but if that is the only contribution he can make, it speaks for itself. It is sad and misguided.
Let me return to the points made by the Foreign Secretary. We heard two very important concessions from the Government Front Bench. The first was that the President of the United States was wrong and that mission has not been accomplished. It is important that the record shows that. The Foreign Secretary also confirmed that the four previous inquiries were limited; in the past, the Government have argued the exact opposite—that they have covered all the bases—so we have had an interesting change in the Government’s position. They have stood their own warped logic on this question on its head this evening. The case for war and the continuing disaster that has engulfed Iraq has been exposed for the sham that it is.
I would like to explain why, five years on from the start of the Iraq war, there is one new reason for holding an inquiry. It concerns our casualties and how we can avoid them. Many of us in different parts of the UK have had bad experiences, suffering heavy casualties in previous conflicts. Going back to world war one, Professor Niall Ferguson pointed out in “The Pity of War” that, relative to population, Scotland suffered the third highest casualties of any country; it came after Serbia and Turkey. As to the number killed as a proportion of the total number of troops mobilised, Scotland provided 26.4 per cent., while the UK average was 11.8 per cent. We know that in the second world war, 50,000 names of Scottish service personnel out of a UK total of 388,000 were added to the rolls of honour for having died in conflict. On the basis of the writings of Trevor Royle, probably Scotland’s best known military authority, we also know that a quarter of all UK service personnel killed in action in the Korean war never came home to Scotland.
Some of those conflicts, and certainly the second world war, were just wars, and perhaps the fact that we lost more people than did other nations was the price that had to be paid. Five years into the Iraq war, however, the statistics on deaths from various nations greatly concerns me. We find that of the 23 coalition nations, the United States leads, which is unsurprising, given the number of its troops there. The next nation on loss of troops relative to population is Wales, and the next after that is Scotland. Some 38 per cent. behind is England. The list goes on. On these islands, we have lost more lives than have many other countries—some larger than our own, but almost all larger than Scotland or Wales.
On one level, those statistics do not matter to mothers and fathers—wherever they are, on these islands or elsewhere—who have lost their loved ones. Every loss is a tragic loss. But the fact remains that the number of Scottish military casualties is higher than the number of casualties in almost every other coalition country, and I want to know why that is. I do not know why it is, and I think that we deserve an answer.
I apologise for missing the first minute of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I hope he is not taking the path that I think he is taking. Many people who join the armed forces join not as Scots, Englishmen, Welshmen or Ulstermen, but to fight for a regiment. Entry to many regiments, including one closely associated with my constituency, means becoming a member of the armed forces. Whether the entrant is English, Scots, Northern Irish or even Commonwealth is irrelevant. I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that.
Although he was sitting in front of me, the hon. Gentleman obviously did not listen to what I said just a moment ago. I said that, in a sense, it did not matter where any casualties came from, and I paid tribute to all personnel. Nevertheless, just as it was right for someone to ask at the beginning of the last century why the establishment of “pals” regiments was not appropriate, it is right now to ask why the rate of casualties suffered in Iraq, as in previous conflicts, is heavily skewed.
I do not know the answer to that question, but I think it worthy of answer, and worthy of answer in an inquiry. Perhaps the Minister can give us the answer this evening. Why have we suffered so many casualties? I am certain that it has nothing to do with the bravery of the troops in question or their leadership on the ground, and I do not think that they were any more or less brave than coalition soldiers from any other country; but the fact remains that our casualty rates are substantially higher, and I think we deserve to know why.
As for the wider question of an inquiry, I have no doubt that, as others have said, the real reason why the Government are not acceding to the request for one this evening is purely to do with the electoral cycle. The Government do not want to go into the next general election after being exposed over the worst foreign policy disaster in which the United Kingdom has involved itself in the last 100 years. It has been a disaster for our service personnel, who have served bravely in our name, and for hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, and it has destabilised the world.
The current Prime Minister was intimately involved. He sat at the Cabinet table at the right hand of Tony Blair. Not only did he agree to this military conflict; he has signed the cheques for it from the start, and any inquiry would show that to be the case. But for all that, and all that, it is not the reason for having an inquiry. The reason is that after five years—longer than the duration of the first world war and than the United States’ involvement in the second—we deserve answers to many, many questions, and an inquiry of the kind proposed has long been needed. I hope that Members in all parts of the House agree that it is right for it to take place now.
A number of right hon. and hon. Members were not in the House on 18 March 2003, when we were able to debate an amendment that would have meant resolving that the case for a war on Iraq had not yet been established. In retrospect, I suspect that even more Members wish that they had not been in the House at that time, because many of them were taken in by the arguments with which they were being bombarded by the Government—and the Prime Minister in particular—about the inevitability of a case for war.
Debates among Labour Members in the Tea Room and in the Corridors of the House legitimately addressed many of the claims that were being made about the necessity for a war: the threat to Britain of a 45-minute strike from Iraq, the weapons of mass destruction, the threat that Iraq posed to the United Kingdom, the importation of uranium cake, and the prospect of a restarted nuclear programme and a concealed chemical weapons programme. All those issues were of legitimate concern to Labour Members, yet they were consistently shrouded in claims that have proved to be utterly groundless, and which at the time must have been known to be untrue.
The question is: to whom do we owe an inquiry? There is a long list of people. We owe it to the families of the 175 British soldiers who have died in Iraq. We owe it to the 4,000 troops who have been injured, and their families. We owe it to the military generals who came to the House before the war and expressed to Members of Parliament their concerns about the legality of going into Iraq and the logistics of getting out. We also owe it to the families of the anything between 250,000 and 500,000 Iraqis who have died as a result of the war, and to the 2 million Iraqis who are now refugees, primarily in countries surrounding Iraq. But most of all we owe it to ourselves, because although several million people in Britain were opposed to the war on any terms, tens of millions made the same judgment, which was that, with reluctance, they believed what the Government were saying because the Prime Minister had consistently said, “If you only knew what I know from the intelligence briefings, you would understand why there is a compelling case for a war.” Those tens of millions of people have a right to say to us, “So now that we know there was not a shred of truth in that, where do you stand on insisting that you hold yourselves accountable so that we learn the lessons from the last war folly in order that you do not mislead us into the next war folly?”
I want to remind Labour Members that, in the days before that debate, those of us who formed Labour Against the War took the liberty of circulating to every Labour Member our counter-dossier to the dodgy dossier that was to come out a day later. We did so with great trepidation, because all of us were hugely fearful that we might have somehow missed something that the weapons inspectors or the International Atomic Energy Agency had said that was not part of the international evidence base of the case against a war, and that at the last minute the Government would pull out a smoking gun and there would be something in their report. It was therefore with a sense of perverse relief that we read the dodgy dossier on the morning of its release and realised that there was nothing there. We circulated all that evidence and those arguments to our colleagues at the time, and we have to take responsibility for the decisions we made in which we knowingly chose not to believe evidence that was internationally available to us; we owe it to ourselves to ask how we were misled.
There are different issues in terms of the Conservatives’ position. I have heard it argued that the objections to having this inquiry now are threefold. The first of them is that it would be a gift to the friends of al-Qaeda. The answer to that is that the greatest gift to al-Qaeda was the war itself. The second objection is that an inquiry would endanger our troops. The reality is that 4,000 British troops are now stationed in a base 8 miles outside Basra at the airport: it is a bunker. They do not do any training outside the base; people have to go in. The idea that more missiles will be fired at the base because there is an inquiry seems ludicrous.
If there is an issue to do with opportunism, we must address it. That is my principal reason for voting for the motion tonight—I want to put the Conservatives on the spot. In the months leading up to the war, I toured the television stations arguing the case against it, but invariably I was preceded or followed by Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen who said, “We would declare our allegiance to the US war initiative a week before Labour. So it is not a question about whether there is evidence. We would prove our credentials earlier than you guys would.”
I want to put the Conservatives on the block over this inquiry. People who ask what led us into that war need only look at the voting record from the debate on 18 March 2003 to find out. Some 245 Labour Members voted for the war—the Government were provided with a majority of 179—but 140 Conservatives also did so. [Interruption.] Some 16 extremely honourable Conservative Members voted against, but we ended up in the war because the principal Opposition refused to be an Opposition. Their loyalty was to the President of the United States and to being on the front line, or to having other people there, a week before Labour. So let us put the Conservatives on the block.
I welcome the prospect of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) being able to give evidence to an inquiry. I wish he could give evidence in his own defence before an inquiry at The Hague, because those who knowingly voted for that war and continue to try to justify that illegal act ought to be required to answer before an international criminal court. That is not within our jurisdiction, but being able to set up an inquiry of our own is. We should not be afraid to say that in a catastrophic experience for the British Government we have led ourselves into a disastrous, dishonest, destabilising and downright illegal war. We owe it to our credibility with our own people and our own armed forces to address the questions of why and at what point people signed up to a war that was a betrayal of the interest of the UK rather than an honouring of it.
It will take me just three minutes to put together what I would like to say. I am one of those people who was not elected when the debate on Iraq first took place. I made it clear that I was against the war at that stage, but I am more concerned about what happened in the aftermath of the decision to go to war—the peacekeeping that took place. It is why I strongly believe that it is time for a review.
The fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is a useful time to take stock of what is going on there. This weekend’s attacks left 47 people dead, and it is clear that that is a typical weekend death count. We do not see the headlines as much as we used to, because not so many British deaths are taking place, but Basra is involved in a turf war and the Anbar province has been ethnically cleansed almost across the board. In Baghdad, where the surge has had an impact, again areas are being cleared of one type of population or another, unemployment is rife, electricity is intermittent and the queues for petrol remain long. More than 4,000 US soldiers have died, as have 175 from the British side, including 11 from my regiment, so now is the time to ask whether we can call this a success story.
The counter-argument is that we got rid of a tyrant, but as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) pointed out, we could have used the military in many other different capacities to end up with a better result. The justification for war moved from weapons of mass destruction to regime change, and intelligence was cherry-picked to make a case. As happens with these things, details are now emerging to suggest that the WMD argument came from a spy codenamed Curveball, who was involved with German federal intelligence, and the Americans never had an opportunity to speak to him directly.
This has been a fascinating debate. It has focused a lot on what has happened to the justification for going to war—but we have made a complete mess of the peace process. We could have done a lot better in the direct aftermath—from the days when President Bush stood on his ship declaring that the mission was accomplished—because that was when the hard work should have begun. There was clearly no plan. Even Colin Powell felt embarrassed having to justify the invasion when he went to the United Nations. The consequence is that we are living in Iraq today and our military are picking up a lot of the criticism, if I can put it that way, for the fact that international development agencies could not take advantage of the fragile peace when we moved in after the invasion. A lot of work needs to be done. There are many questions outstanding, and I believe that an inquiry is well overdue.
This has been a significant debate, in terms both of the passion and quality of the speeches by Members from all parties and of the sheer flimsiness of the arguments advanced by Ministers in defence of the Government’s position.
A couple of speeches will stay in my mind. The historical knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) and his references to the Ems telegram, Cavour and successive Iraqi leaders certainly set the debate in context. I confess that I was somewhat entertained when I listened to the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) give the House a lecture on the importance of constant principle in the context of politics today.
Of course, I have been extraordinarily constant on this issue. I publicly dissociated myself from the Conservative party when it first supported the Scottish National party’s proposal for an inquiry. I explained back in 2006 why I thought it was an extraordinarily irresponsible idea. I did exactly the same last year.
The hon. Gentleman has been constant on this issue; I doubt whether many of his constituents would believe that he had been consistent in many others.
We have heard agreement in the debate, the common ground being that we should have an inquiry. The argument has been over its timing and, to some extent, its scope. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), concentrated on its scope. I want to reassure him that, as the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said in his speech, the motion was deliberately chosen. It follows the terms of a Scottish Nationalist and Plaid Cymru motion that was debated in the House in 2006. That wording was the outcome of cross-party discussions, which included Labour Members.
Our purpose in choosing that motion rather than one that could easily have been phrased to score party political points was to try to unite as many Members as possible throughout the House in support of a measure that we believe it is in our national interest to support. Its scope is wide, rather than as narrow as the hon. Member for Ilford, South said. I draw his attention to the words in the motion, particularly those that state that an inquiry would have power
“to review the way in which the responsibilities of Government were discharged in relation to Iraq, and all matters relevant thereto”.
It is open under our proposal for a committee of inquiry to search as far back in history as the hon. Gentleman proposed, or even further, if Privy Counsellors on that committee so decided.
The thrust of the debate has been about the timing of a proposed inquiry. The Foreign Secretary, to his credit, laid at least one argument to rest when he said that the morale of the armed forces was not an issue, and would not be harmed if an inquiry were to take place now. The argument was rather that holding an inquiry now would interfere with what he described as important operations under way in Iraq. In effect, he was saying that the effectiveness of the military could be harmed if we were to press ahead with the inquiry now rather than delaying it.
The Foreign Secretary told us about significant actions taking place in Basra today, but those actions do not involve British troops, except possibly in a supporting or specialist role. In a written answer given to my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), the Secretary of State for Defence said:
“UK Forces have not received any requests from the Iraqi authorities to re-intervene in Muthanna, Dhi Qar or Basra since the handover of security responsibility to the Iraqis in these provinces.”
He went on to say that
“we have provided specialist support to operations led by the Iraqi security forces on a number of occasions.”—[Official Report, 10 March 2008; Vol. 473, c. 14W.]
Minister after Minister, from the Ministry of Defence and from the Foreign Office, has hailed the changes that have taken place in the last six to nine months as evidence that responsibility for security and the lead role in Iraq is being progressively handed over to the Iraqis, with British forces taking a much more limited role. However, at the same time, Ministers appear to argue that that role—which includes training, securing supply routes and policing the Iran-Iraq border, as the Foreign Secretary described—is still such that an inquiry should not take place until those duties have been completed, and, logically, until the last serviceman or woman has been withdrawn from Iraq.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we consider the contributions that have been made to the debate, and if we took a poll of those who contributed or intervened, we would—by a majority of probably four to one—have an inquiry starting tomorrow?
I agree completely. The weakness of the Government’s case can be analysed in this way. First, the case that an inquiry would harm the ability of our forces to carry out those duties has so far rested almost entirely on assertion by Ministers, rather than on evidence. The Foreign Secretary was asked by the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) whether any military commanders, past or present, had lobbied against an inquiry being held now or had counselled delay. The Foreign Secretary replied straightforwardly that none had made any such objection. Indeed, senior former commanders—such as Lord Inge, Lord Guthrie and Sir Mike Jackson—have supported calls for an inquiry.
The suggestion—which, in fairness, only the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford made—that we would somehow face the prospect of rank and file servicemen and women being hauled back from Basra airbase to London to be quizzed by the great and good in a Privy Council inquiry, is nothing short of bizarre. It is a feeble argument on which we do not need to linger.
The Government then resort to saying that it is not only the soldiers about whom they are concerned. The fear is, the Foreign Secretary said, that senior Ministers and diplomats will be distracted from concentrating on their duties on Iraq. The Foreign Secretary echoed words previously spoken by the Prime Minister, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) pointed out. He asked who these people are who are so consumed now by duties relating specifically to Iraq that they cannot give evidence about events that took place, for the most part, between 2002 and 2004. Many, probably most, of those who were in senior positions in those years will now have moved on. In fact, we can measure their career progress by consulting the publishing schedules for memoirs and the television schedules for interviews.
The idea that senior Ministers or officials will ever reach that miraculous day where their diaries are clear and they can fill in the empty hours by preparing evidence to submit to the inquiry is fanciful in the extreme. And yet the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have said that fear of distracting such people is a key part of their case for refusing to have an inquiry now. Well, look at what has happened in the United States. It has suffered far greater casualties, and continues to commit a far larger number of troops to Iraq than we do. It has had five separate inquiries, and senior military, diplomatic and political leaders have given up their time and energy to respond to those inquiries. It is to the credit of democracy in the US that both the Bush Administration and both sides in Congress recognise the importance of holding themselves accountable to the American people for the decisions that they have taken, and of arguing their case openly on the basis of evidence.
Then the Government say that we cannot have an inquiry because of the state of Iraqi politics, and that we have to wait until Iraq is a stable country. The mixture of disbelief and ridicule with which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) greeted that element of the Government’s argument did it perfect justice. Does anybody seriously believe that decisions by Iraqi leaders about petroleum revenue sharing or forming a stable coalition Government, or the outcome of Iraqi provincial and local elections, will be influenced one jot by whether or when we hold a Privy Council inquiry in London about how the decision to go to war came to be taken? The idea that Iraq’s leaders are sitting inside the green zone scanning Hansard online, or waiting for minutes of a Privy Council inquiry to appear, is just ludicrous.
The Foreign Secretary shot down the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) when he tried to ramp up that argument in an intervention. The words slipped out of the Foreign Secretary’s mouth—and were true—that the Iraqi Government have more important things on their mind.
The hon. Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook), argued that an inquiry would give encouragement to al-Qaeda and other terrorists. Terrorists need no excuse for their campaigns of slaughter. If they did not have Iraq, they would have something else. I do not believe for a moment that they would be swayed one way or the other by the existence of an inquiry. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned 7/7 and the risk that an inquiry could feed extremism in our own country. He is now returning to his place, and I say to him that on the basis of my constituency experience, it is the absence of an inquiry and the impression of secrecy that allows conspiracy theories to run rife and plays into the hands of the extremists whom both he and I wish to see defeated.
Many Members have spoken about the importance of an inquiry to learning lessons for the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) asked why we could not learn from Iraq and apply in Afghanistan the lessons about the failure of the coalition in Iraq to recruit, train and supervise an effective police force. A number of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) in an intervention and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), talked about the lack of connection between the military moving in and securing territory, and the relief and reconstruction effort moving in so that ordinary Iraqis or Afghans can see greater security and a benefit to the quality of their everyday lives from the intervention of western forces.
Those lessons need to be learned, but there is a further important reason why we should have an inquiry without delay. The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch), in a passionate speech, spoke about how future Governments might one day wish to seek agreement from Parliament to take this country to war again. We cannot predict now the circumstances of such decisions, but I fear that one result of the decisions on Iraq has been seriously to harm public confidence in this country about the capacity of the British Government to take such decisions correctly and explain their reasoning honestly to Parliament and the people.
I want to believe that the Government of my country, whichever party happens to be in government at any one time, measure the advice given to them by their professionals in the diplomatic service, the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces. I want to be confident that the Prime Minister and the full Cabinet have access to all the information, including the dissenting opinions, available in Whitehall and from outside advisers. I also want to be confident that the Government will be straight with Parliament and the public about the decisions that they recommend on the nation’s behalf.
The debate has shown that the Government are bereft of any plausible reason to resist an inquiry. It is in our national and democratic interest to press ahead with one, and I hope that hon. Members of all parties will feel able to support the motion this evening.
We have had a good and passionate debate. It has covered well trodden ground, and I contend that the arguments for an inquiry have contained little that is new.
Five years on from the decision to invade Iraq, our armed forces are still there. They are helping the Iraqis to rebuild their country on a foundation of democratic institutions, after decades of the most appalling tyranny. We are involved in helping with Iraq’s economy and infrastructure, and with basic services such as health and education. We are also helping with security—the essential prerequisite to progress in those other areas.
Better security is the reason why Iraqi security forces are deployed right now in Basra city on an Iraqi military operation to improve Iraqi security. The operation has been initiated at a time of the Iraqis’ choosing, although we continue to provide the specialist support that they may need. It is really encouraging that the Iraqi security forces are both leading and conducting the operation, as it shows that the transition of responsibility for security is working, with Iraqis implementing Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems. The operation also shows that the Iraqis increasingly have the will, capacity and leadership to take on the irreconcilable militia elements in the south.
Basra remains of vital economic importance to Iraq. Historically, it was the country’s commercial centre and a major gateway for trade, with 80 per cent. of the country’s oil coming out through that city. Today’s events there only underline the need to focus on the requirements of the operational theatre.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that an inquiry into the Iraq war will be necessary. There are always lessons to learn, and it is clear that there will be important practical lessons about post-war planning. We must examine them if we are to maintain confidence about matters as important as any future military interventions.
The question that divides us is when an inquiry should take place. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) sees no difficulty with holding one now. He said that there was no need to wait until our involvement was concluded, and he does not accept that an inquiry would be a distraction from the job at hand. He believes that an inquiry can be held now—with witnesses summoned, deployed equipment scrutinised, and intelligence and policy examined—but that none of that will have a detrimental effect on the ongoing operation.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary set out the four points on which the right time to hold an inquiry hinges. He also demonstrated that there is no precedent for conducting an inquiry while troops are still deployed. The hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) came as close as anyone did to punching a hole in my right hon. Friend’s defences when he said that there was indeed a precedent—namely, the inquiry that was held while the Mesopotamia operation of 1916 was ongoing. I have a great deal of respect for his historical knowledge, but let me tell him that we surrendered in Mesopotamia on 29 April 1916, that the commission was set up on 17 August 1916, and that we re-engaged—[Interruption.] Hold on! We re-engaged in December 1916. Let me tell him also that when the inquiry was set up, it said of its terms of reference:
“We believe—and we have acted on that belief—that our main duties were to enquire into the operations antecedent to our appointment, and that to investigate into and report upon pending or present operations might seriously hamper the action of those now in charge of the campaign.”
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman, who came closer to winning his argument than anybody else, simply appears to be wrong on that point.
I am grateful to the Minister, a member of the parliamentary breakfast club. I thank him very much, because he has just proved my point. The campaign in Mesopotamia went on from late 1914 all the way through until 1918. The report looked into the disasters that took place in Mesopotamia, sadly, before the end of 1916, so that lessons could be drawn and learned for the future campaign. Game, set and match; thank you, Minister.
And the commission said, in terms, that it felt it would be wrong for it to look into “current operations”. The commission was looking into operations antecedent to its establishment.
The hon. Gentleman was probably there, but I will not give way to him. [Hon. Members: “Give way.”] Let me make some progress. [Interruption.]
Order. We must have order. Will the right hon. Gentleman give way to the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell)?
No. [Interruption.]
Order. The hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle knows how generous I am to him, but the Minister will not give way.
No, I am not giving way. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a short while, so that he can extensively quote himself again.
The hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk demonstrated that there was no precedent for conducting an inquiry while our troops were still deployed. The principle must surely be that while our men and women in uniform remain in theatre, we must prioritise their operations—or are we too impatient to put their work first? I know what I intend to put first.
Our priority in Iraq is to see a fully functioning democratic state—a state that is stable, that serves the interests of all the people of Iraq, that has a healthy economy, and that provides effective services. Those essential parts of Iraq’s future will develop only in a secure environment. That is why British armed forces are now focused on training and mentoring the Iraqi security forces. Those facts are not disputed; it is only the events and decisions that caused them that are disputed. Yes, we will need to look back at those events and decisions, but not now.
I will give way soon. About 4,000 members of the British armed forces are currently based in southern Iraq, and while it is true that there has been progress in the last year, much still needs to be done in that theatre.
I will give way to hon. Gentlemen in a minute.
The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, with all his usual eloquence, tried to suggest that the basis of his proposal was a bipartisan, fact-finding desire. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) was the first to expose the real reasons, as he stripped away the notion, carefully presented by the right hon. Gentleman, that it is about some non-partisan fact-finding proposal. He revealed that it is about political exposure and attack, and that that desire overrides all consideration of the fact that our 4,000 people are still involved and in harm’s way while they conduct their task.
The hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) said that we do not need an inquiry, because we know all there is to know about what went wrong. All we need to do, he suggested, is expose the then Prime Minister, to use his terms, “as the scoundrel that he is”. That is what it is about, and I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman. I see that he does not wish to intervene.
The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) said that we need to get on with this to expose the Labour party before the next election.
What I said was that that was the only reason why the Government were not prepared to hold an inquiry now. They do not want an inquiry to report before the general election.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman gave his reasons for wanting an inquiry, and they were pretty clear.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) supported the case for an inquiry. He said that he does not want to learn lessons so that mistakes are not repeated. He said that he wanted to look at those responsible, and he wanted to ensure that they were brought to book. The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) wanted to examine whether the war was a legal war—all of that while our forces are still involved in Iraq.
I did indeed say that I wanted an inquiry to reveal who was responsible for what has happened in Iraq, and the disasters that have followed. If, as part of that, the inquiry reveals the previous Prime Minister to be a scoundrel in what he said in the House, what is wrong with that?
The hon. Gentleman said what he said. He said that he did not want an inquiry to learn the lessons so that mistakes would not be repeated. He wanted to expose those who were responsible and ensure that they were brought to book.
We have responsibilities to the Iraqi Government and to the Iraqi people—to the brave Iraqis who have fought alongside us to establish security and progress. We have responsibilities to our allies but, most of all, we have responsibilities to our own people. Although I have heard protestations that an inquiry called now will do no harm, I have heard nothing that persuades me that it will assist our people to do their job in any way. We are committed to remaining in Iraq for as long as is needed and wanted by the democratic Government of Iraq. We have obligations under the terms of the UN mandate, renewed at the end of last year. Those who have responsibility to deliver improvements in security in Iraq want us to stay, and value our support and assistance. We do those things only through the dedication, bravery and hard work of those who carry out our policies in Iraq. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is not going to be conducting an inquiry into its involvement in Iraq; neither are the militias in the south. Those who are setting up rocket rails to bomb our troops in the COB—the contingency operating base—will not be conducting an inquiry in Iraq; and neither should we be doing so at this time.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the Resolutions of this House of 31st October 2006 and 11th June 2007 on an Iraq inquiry; recognises that this House has already twice voted against holding an inquiry at these times; further recognises that a time will come when an inquiry is appropriate; but declines to make a proposal for a further inquiry at this time, whilst important operations are underway in Iraq to support the people and government of Iraq.
Local Government Finance
I beg to move,
That the Local Government Finance Special Grant Report (No. 129) on the grant to be paid towards the cost of implementing the new statutory minimum bus travel concession in England (House of Commons Paper No. 256), which was laid before this House on 19th February, be approved.
The report sets out the extra funding that the Government are making available to local government in England to implement the national concessionary fares scheme—a scheme that means that 11 million people over 60, and eligible disabled people, will be entitled to free bus travel wherever they are in England. Access to effective public transport makes a real difference to many people’s lives. It plays a key role in boosting the economy, reducing congestion, tackling climate change, promoting social inclusion and improving our quality of life.
Buses are the most widely used form of public transport in this country. More than two thirds of all public transport journeys are made on them, and after years of decline the number of bus journeys is now on the increase. There were more than 4 billion such journeys in the UK in 2006-07. Clearly, buses are becoming more and more attractive as a means of travel. They are more accessible for disabled passengers than ever before and there has been good progress in improving the quality of buses, with the age of vehicles decreasing over the last 10 years. The flexibility of bus networks means that they can provide a genuine alternative to the car, not only improving social inclusion, but helping to tackle congestion and contributing to meeting our goals on climate change.
The Government recognise that buses are particularly important for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. They often provide a vital lifeline to services such as shops, leisure facilities and hospitals, and they are an important connection to the community. For many older and disabled people, buses provide a vital link to the places they want to go and the people they want to see. The Government are fully aware of that, and I am proud of our record in helping more and more older and disabled people to use buses. In 2000, we acted to ensure that, for the first time, older and disabled people in England were guaranteed half-price bus travel within their local authority area.
I would like to put on the record my appreciation for the assistance that my right hon. Friend gave us to make sure that the community transport dial-a-ride scheme in Derbyshire would be advised that it fell within the concessionary scheme, thus ensuring that the services she described will remain available in a sparsely populated rural area. She will be pleased to know that all of the other major parts of the old Derbyshire Gold scheme have now been negotiated and will go on as part of the Derbyshire Gold card.
I know that my hon. Friend campaigned extremely hard on that issue, and that he worked closely with community transport members in his area. I know that he is interested in looking at how the Local Transport Bill, which the House will debate tomorrow, could contribute to the enhancement of community transport. I thank him for bringing that matter to my attention, and I am glad that I was able to confirm the fact that the Local Transport Bill will assist in this area. He is right; the scheme has proved extremely popular among disabled people and older people. In 2000, we ensured that older and disabled people would have guaranteed half-price bus travel. It proved extremely popular, but we did not want to stop there.
During his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister acknowledged the importance of concessionary travel and its potential for enhancing people’s quality of life. That is why, in April 2006, we improved the statutory minimum concession from half-price travel to free local travel for those eligible and we provided £350 million through the rate support grant in 2006-07, rising to £367.5 million in 2007-08 and £377 million in 2008-09. Once again, however, we wanted to go further—and we wanted people over 60 and disabled people to be able to go further, too.
The Minister has given us the figures on how much the Government will give local authorities towards the cost of the scheme, but will she also share with the House the total rounded figure that the independent consultant said would be the overall cost of fully funding the scheme?
Actually, those are not the figures for the new scheme. I have provided information on the amounts of money already in the system; I shall come on later to the extra money that will be made available. To provide one example, in the hon. Gentleman’s local authority, it will mean a 30 per cent. increase over the last financial year.
When the Minister reaches that point and provides those figures, will she also provide the total amount that the Government’s independent assessor calculated as the cost of fully funding the scheme? It amuses me to hear the right hon. Lady saying that my local authority area is getting a 30 per cent. increase in funding—and we are not going to complain about that. However, what she fails to say is that her own independent assessor estimated the total cost of fully funding the scheme in my area at £1.1 million, yet the Government have given Chelmsford borough council only £413,000, which means a shortfall of £738,000.
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is entirely clear about the calculation of the reimbursement system costs. Consultants are employed by local authorities and work with them on estimating the reimbursement amounts that should go to the bus operators. It is quite a complicated system of assessment, which is why the consultants are employed in the first place. As I have said, however, in the hon. Gentleman’s local area, a 30 per cent. increase in funding—in comparison with the previous financial year—will be available to his local authority from April. As I shall explain more fully later, we believe that that is a very generous settlement.
I shall give way in a few seconds.
We wanted to go further, as I said earlier, because we recognise that the places where people need to travel often have little to do with the sometimes arbitrary boundaries of the local authority in which they live.
I give way first to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes).
I am grateful, but may I provide the Minister with a slightly less rosy view of what is happening in Derbyshire than was given by the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt)? There is a total of 10 councils in Derbyshire and they are variously run by all three political parties. The figures I am providing are the latest ones from this morning, as discussed in the Chesterfield borough council’s cabinet. Collectively, the 10 councils say that, across Derbyshire, the cost of the scheme is £15.5 million, but because of Government underfunding, the councils collectively have to put in £2.6 million. That applies to Labour-run councils like Bolsover, which says that it is £96,000 short, as well as to the Lib Dem-run council in Chesterfield, which says that it is £164,000 short.
As the hon. Gentleman may know, I have had discussions about the situation in Derbyshire, not least because of the interest shown by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt). I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that there have been enhancements to the national scheme. There is the gold card, for instance, and concessionary amounts have been paid to Community Transport. That is absolutely fine, and it will continue if it is what local authorities want. What I am discussing, however, is funding for the national concessionary scheme. For Chesterfield, it means a 32 per cent. increase over and above what it spent in the last financial year, which is about 3 per cent. more than the average that most councils are receiving.
In Derbyshire, a county-wide scheme is already operating. In other areas an additional amount will be spent in the next year to cover journeys in and out of the county, but in Derbyshire that is covered by what it has been doing over the past year, which makes the 32 per cent. increase even more generous than it would be in a different area. About 4 per cent. of people tend to travel outside their county area. Chesterfield borough council will have £416,000 extra, which means that if £1 is spent per journey, 416,000 extra journeys will have to be accounted for in the area.
The Minister used the word “national”. When the Prime Minister, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the scheme, many of my constituents thought that “national” meant “the United Kingdom”. As the Minister will know, because I have questioned her on the subject before, my constituency borders Wales, and it is not possible to travel from it to Wales if it is necessary to change buses. It breaks up the journey, and for many of my constituents that makes the scheme effectively worthless. [Interruption.] Someone who wants to travel from Lydney to Chepstow and then to the hospital in Newport cannot use the scheme at all.
I doubt that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents would consider a 41 per cent. grant increase worthless. I should be interested to know how much he thinks Conservative Front Benchers believe should be spent on the scheme if they do not think that 41 per cent. is enough for his constituents. He will probably want to ask them that question.
As the hon. Gentleman said, there are some cross-border buses, and there has been a local agreement on funding for them. We have had some initial discussions with the devolved Administrations, but we want to bed down the arrangements in England separately before considering the financial implications of extending them to Scotland and Wales, which would be fairly severe. The hon. Gentleman may wish to ask his Front-Bench colleagues whether they would use finances that may or may not be available to them for that purpose, but our priority is to ensure that the English system works well. Cross-border services can of course continue, but the financial implications of extending them further are, as I have said, considerable.
rose—
Because we are dealing with this subject, I will give way to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), but then I must make some progress.
It is clear from answers already given to me by the Minister and the Secretary of State that the Government have not done much work yet on the costs of reciprocal arrangements between England and Scotland and Wales. Ought not that work to begin? It is not at all clear that such large costs are necessary. To most of our constituents, who believe in the Union of England, Scotland and Wales, this seems an arbitrary limitation on the ability that people in other parts of the country have to use their passes across borders.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman has been concerned about this, as he raised it at Transport questions a couple of months ago. As I have said, we want to ensure that the system to deliver this settlement is in place. At some point, we might want to go further than that, but the priority is to make sure that the settlements that we have announced so far are implemented and that the scheme is up and running before we go further.
I acknowledge that the borough of Fylde has received an additional £270,000 this year, but what assurances can the Minister give me about a small coastal borough such as mine, which may have this scheme used disproportionately because of tourism in our area? What can she do to monitor how the formula operates, in case under the current arrangements it does not recognise disproportionate use for tourist purposes?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for acknowledging that there has been an increase in the allocation for his area, which ranges from 19 per cent. to 31 per cent. for the respective authorities—that is the increase Fylde has had. I shall discuss later how we made the calculations as that is an important point, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman that matters such as visitor numbers were taken into account in order to try to reflect the points that people in coastal towns have made.
In 2006, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced that, for the first time, about 11 million older and disabled people would be able to use off-peak local buses free of charge anywhere in England from April 2008. That will deliver the freedom to travel across district or county boundaries to nearby shops, to access health care, and to visit friends and relatives. It will mean that there is free travel when visiting any part of England.
To refer to the point of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), through the report before us tonight we are providing an additional £212 million to local government in 2008-09, rising to £217 million in 2009-10 and £223 million in 2010-11. Taking into account money received through the revenue support grant, including the extra added from 2006 and the special grant for this latest extension, the total value of funding for concessionary travel is now about £1 billion a year.
To date, all of the funding to travel concession authorities for reimbursing operators has been routed through the formula grant part of the wider local government finance settlement. As the report before the House makes clear, the figure of £212 million for this year—rising in the manner I have stated—is based on generous assumptions about pass take-up, fares and journey rates. This £212 million of funding is solely to cover the extra costs of the new concession. It does not cover the cost of the existing free local travel concession, the funding for which will continue to be provided through the formula grant. It also does not cover any discretionary concessions that authorities may choose to offer. Those must continue to be funded from authorities’ own resources in exactly the same way as in the past. The new concession does not prevent local authorities from continuing to fund discretionary concessionary travel if they wish to do so.
I appreciate that the new money is simply allocated to deal with the additional costs of the new scheme, but Cambridge city council believes that the scheme will cost it £400,000 a year more than the Government are granting from this new money. Does the Minister accept that although that is a small sum for the Government, for a council such as Cambridge it is the equivalent of the entire increase in this year’s council tax? The sum is calculated on the basis of a 13-element flow diagram. Surely the Government must recognise that it might be wrong in some individual cases.
The hon. Gentleman’s authority is receiving a 60 per cent. increase compared with what it spent in the past financial year. Some Labour Members would feel slightly jealous about that.
The right hon. Lady repeatedly talks about percentage increases in funding, yet she omits to mention the percentage increases in costs. The whole point that the Liberal Democrats are trying to make is that the percentage increases in costs for some authorities clearly outweigh the increases in grant aid being offered. If this was only a matter of increasing funding, it would not be a problem. The problem is on the cost side.
Our rough estimate is that the extra journeys would cost £1 per journey. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, the money would account for about 645,000 extra journeys made by over-60s and eligible disabled people who decide to use buses to come into the area.
I am not going to let the hon. Gentleman in again, because I am sure that he might wish to contribute to the debate itself rather than through a series of interventions—he probably wants to make his own speech. May I reiterate that he must bear in mind the 60 per cent. increase on what was spent in the past financial year?
Let me deal with how we decided to distribute the extra funding. My Department worked closely with stakeholders. From our discussions, it became clear that local authorities wanted the additional funding to be provided by way of a special grant. We accepted that recommendation and listened to what local authorities had to say about it. We then consulted widely on the distribution mechanism for the special grant. Our consultation paper offered a number of different formula options for distributing the grant based on combinations of existing data likely to be linked to the eventual costs of the new concession. As I have said, we are talking about things such as visitor numbers, bus patronage and eligible population.
We then consulted further on four options, asking local authorities which they preferred. Our proposed distribution is based on the most popular of those options, changed to take account of some of the information received and views expressed during the consultation.
All three of the relevant authorities in my constituency are predicting a massive shortfall. For example, Purbeck district council, which is a small authority that has a total budget of only £6 million, predicts a shortfall of £123,000. That makes me wonder whether the Government’s anticipation of the extra visitor numbers to a wonderful tourist area such as the one that I am proud to represent is the same as the predictions made locally. My three councils are all predicting massive shortfalls.
Actually, a lot of the figures that we use are based on figures provided by local authorities. We do not make them up—we use the data that are available. In the hon. Lady’s constituency, the increase ranges from 31 per cent. to 40 per cent, which is considerable. In the Poole area, the special grant allocation is £596,000, which equates to approximately 596,000 extra journeys that might be expected in the area. It is important to recognise that that is a generous concession.
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and repeat the congratulations of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) on the flexibility she has shown about the issues raised in Derbyshire. In weighing up the increase given to Derbyshire, did she take into account the arbitration dispute with the bus companies based on the previous scheme, which is still in place this year? I believe that the arbitrator has found in favour of the companies and therefore substantially increased the cost that local authorities will have to pay. Has she taken that into account in the awards that have been given?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There have been instances where the bus operators have challenged the amount that they receive through the reimbursement system. Overall, in terms of the appeals that have been heard, some £6 million has been granted through the appeals system although some £28 million had been asked for by operators. Overall, £6.5 million is a fairly small amount, compared with the £1 billion that is spent on concessionary fares.
If my hon. Friend is asking whether we took into account appeals that are taking place, the answer is no. We had a formula that was based, as I have said, on bus patronage, eligible population and visitor numbers. It is then up to local authorities to handle matters through the reimbursement scheme, under which the bus operator should be no better or no worse off—that is the point of the scheme. That is how the appeal system works. It is important that we have an appeal system, but we consulted with local authorities on what we thought and gave them a number of options based on a host of different ways of calculating the formula. We then based the award on that. In my hon. Friend’s area, the increase is about 21 per cent., but overall in the Derbyshire scheme there is agreement that we can move forward on the terms that we had before.
rose—
I shall now wind up, but I shall take one more intervention if my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) wants—
In that case, I shall take an intervention from the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross).
I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way—in fact, I thank the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) for not intervening. The Minister has been very generous and I know that she has spent a long time listening to local authorities and Members making representations. Does she accept that there is real fear among local authorities that the figures might be wrong? I hope that the authorities are wrong and that the Minister is right. If it turns out that the authorities are right and there is massive use of the provision—even though that would be a great success—that results in their ending up with great deficits, what mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that they are reimbursed not in three years’ time but in at least one year’s time?
I met the hon. Gentleman and representatives of his council, as did my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, to discuss the issue. In the hon. Gentleman’s area, the increase on what was spent in the previous financial year is 31 per cent. There is a particular problem in his area because some of the councils have opted out of the county scheme, and he was concerned about that. However, we have to balance that with the certainty that we are able to give with a three-year settlement, and we believe that it is very generous.
The fact is that most councils will receive around a 30 per cent. increase on average. The mechanism will be available in the future so that the funding can move from district councils to county level. In some areas, representations have been made about that, and we retain an open mind on some of the issues. However, it is important that councils have some certainty over the three-year period as to exactly what their funding will be. We need to get the balance right between the two.
The formula that we eventually arrived at distributes the funding on the basis of eligible local population, visitor numbers, retail floor space and current bus use. As such, we believe that it takes account of likely demand in areas such as coastal towns, urban centres and other places likely to experience an increase in bus journeys. Using that formula, we have drawn up the funding allocations for each of the travel concession authorities in England, as contained in the report today. As I have said, the average increase for local authorities is 29 per cent. above the figures for the last financial year.
The national concessionary fares scheme has been widely welcomed by older and disabled people. It gives a new freedom to millions of people and it is a very good scheme. The formula is generous in how it distributes money between local authorities to fund the scheme and I commend the report to the House.
The motion before us tonight is to approve the local government finance special grant for the new concessionary bus regime—the new regime—and does not include any moneys for any other regime. It is the new regime that will come into operation on 1 April on the basis of the regime passed by the House in the Concessionary Bus Travel Act 2007 last summer. That extended the free off-peak concession to national travel, starting at 9.30 am for all those aged over 60 or disabled.
As the Minister said, the grant is not to do with what was already in place in terms of local concessionary travel, under which arrangements local authorities could offer a more generous scheme. Indeed, they still have the right to do so. However, the thrust of the debate tonight—the Minister has already made her case by saying that the settlement is generous—is not about what the Government have provided, as that is fine, but about the fact that the Government made a commitment to local authorities that they would fully fund the extended regime. The question is whether the Government have fulfilled that commitment, and I suspect that the answer, from the Opposition Benches, will be that, generous though the Government believe 29 per cent. to be, it does not represent the cost implications of the extension to a national free scheme. Therefore, the Government cannot be said to have fulfilled their commitment.
Would the Conservatives provide more money for this scheme?
That is not the point. I am happy to talk about the Opposition’s plans, but I and the Liberal Democrats pointed out over several sittings of the Committee considering the Concessionary Bus Travel Bill that neither the amount of money on offer nor the funding formula were likely to be sufficient to meet the Government’s commitment to fund the new regime in full. The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is that the debate will show that the Government have not met the commitment that they made.
At the outset, I can tell the House that we shall not vote against the motion. However, it is important that the Government understand that the criticisms and concerns raised during the passage through the House of the Concessionary Bus Travel Bill should not be forgotten. We have repeated those concerns and criticisms in questions on the Floor of the House, and local authorities have voiced the same message.
We have always made it clear that we are in favour of the principle of concessionary travel for elderly and disabled people. Just as much as the Minister, we recognise that the ability to travel is especially important, but we cannot support legislation that appears to be both ill thought out and insufficiently funded. The Government promised that the scheme would be fully funded—but tell that to the local authorities that will no longer be able to subsidise certain bus routes, or which are being forced to cut other services as a direct result of the settlement that they are receiving, or those left with no option but to raise council tax as a result of the new regime.
The Government promised that the scheme would be fully funded—but tell that to the bus operators who will be forced to cut frequencies, or who have indicated that they expect that they will be withdrawing services this time next year, or whose businesses will be threatened by the financial uncertainty inherent in the reimbursement system.
What is my hon. Friend’s view about how the system has been set up? There are 324 different travel concession authorities based on district councils, and bus operators have lodged more than 100 appeals to the Secretary of State. Does my hon. Friend believe that there should have been fewer travel concession authorities, perhaps on a county-wide basis? Would that not smooth the differentials that are going to occur?
My hon. Friend makes an exceedingly good point. We have not suggested that the Government base the reimbursement authorities on different areas. The scheme offers national travel on a local basis. Both in Committee and on the Floor of the House, we have always said that the greater the number of local reimbursement authorities, the more complex the reimbursement procedures will be. Many people have spoken about hotspots and honeypots in respect of funding, and the problems with the scheme are evident in many of the responses that are being received.
The hon. Gentleman will have heard that the Government will pay Cambridge local authority an extra £645,000, which is equivalent to an extra 600,000 journeys by qualifying elderly and disabled people. Is he saying that that figure for extra journeys is an underestimate? If he is not going to use the figures provided by local authorities, what figures does he intend to use?
On the basis of the responses that I have received from local authorities, I am not convinced that £645,000 equals 600,000 journeys. Many authorities believe that journey costs have been underestimated, and therefore that the number of journeys covered by the money being made available has been overestimated.
It might help the hon. Gentleman to know that bus fares in the east of England are the second highest in the country. The average fare is £1.60, rather than £1. Another part of the problem is that we are not comparing like with like. The new rule is that the authority that pays for the journey is the authority in which the bus journey begins, not the authority of residence of the person making the journey. As a result, authorities will now be liable for journeys that already take place, but for which they do not currently pay.
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about an inherent aspect of the scheme—a point that has been made several times in debate.
The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) suggested that the Conservatives would take the responsibility for the concessionary fare away from the districts and give it to the county. Is that the policy of the Conservative party?
My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering suggested that it might be simpler to do so in terms of reimbursement. What I said in response, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is that the current structure was always likely to be inherently difficult to administer, and to cause problems when it came to ensuring that the funding followed the journey, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) pointed out. It is clear that there are a number of ways in which local authorities and districts run the schemes, and we have not said that we would change that. We have pointed out that the way in which the Government chose to structure the reimbursement made it highly likely that there would be problems with ensuring that revenue followed the journey, and clearly those problems are occurring.
The Local Government Association has commented on the pressure on some local authorities. It says:
“Since the 2006 extension to the concessionary fares, councils report rises of over 150 per cent…to operators”.
It also says that
“the government should keep under review”
what
“amount…in 2008/09…is sufficient”,
and:
“Councils are reporting difficulties in estimating the precise cost in the run-up to April 1st.”
Earlier, the Minister said from a sedentary position that that point was covered by county-wide schemes. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that county-wide schemes might cover part of those costs, but not all of them? In particular, in tourist areas—cities such as Cambridge or seaside resorts—there is a regular annual or monthly input of people who are not covered by those calculations.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering effectively made that same point, and in response I said that in these debates, we have recognised hotspots and honeypots. Those are exactly the places where people who are not resident in the area may well use buses.
The Minister talked about the percentage of extra money that was being funded by the Government, but as several hon. Members said in interventions, that does not recognise the extra cost of concessionary fares or the formula estimating the number of journeys. Also, she said that current usage would be our indicator for future usage, but because of a number of issues such as the hotspot issue, that is unlikely to be a good indicator.
A number of councils across the country have talked about the budget deficits that they will experience in 2008-09 as a result of the problems. The Minister mentioned extra moneys, but let me talk about the local councils that have provided me with data relating to budget deficits that will be created. The Basildon authority has given a £500,000 figure. Blackpool has talked about £200,000. Brighton and Hove is talking about a sum of about £1.7 million. The hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) has told us that Carlisle expects a budget deficit of £270,000. The local authority of my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) has indicated that it is likely to have a budget deficit of at least £500,000. Hastings has given a £200,000 figure. I could go on, mentioning places across the country.
When the Bill introducing the scheme passed through Parliament last year, time and again my colleagues and I expressed serious concerns about the funding system and whether the Government would put enough money into the system to fund what they were proposing. At the time, I tabled an amendment calling for a review of the funding mechanism, which would allow the Government to establish the costs borne by operators and authorities. Such a review would allow the Government to see whether the moneys that they were putting into the scheme were adequate for the new extension; to ensure that the distribution of those moneys went to the right place; to achieve efficiency and savings; and to re-examine whether the “no better off, no worse off” principle was being followed. The short answer is that the amendment was defeated by the Government, and no one knows whether the funding provided by the Government for concessionary travel is sufficient. Had the amendment been accepted, we would not be seeing some of the chaos that we see today, and a proper review could be performed with the aim of evening out those unforeseen inconsistencies.
The Government have talked about providing £212 million extra this year; £217 million in 2009-10; and £223 million the following year. That might be enough, but it may not be. The Minister said that it was extra money. It is not: it is the money that was going to be necessary on top of what was already available for concessionary funding to implement the Government’s new scheme. Last year, when the Bill was in Committee, the then Minister was talking not about £212 million, but about £250 million. As for the £1 billion that the Minister has discussed again tonight, £400,000 of that is somewhere in the rates support system, and it is extremely difficult to trace whether the Government have really provided that sum, and whether it is reaching the places it should reach.
The moneys that the Government are providing may be enough, but from the experience of local authorities, that certainly does not appear to be the case. For the past couple of years, bus operator inflation, as recognised by all transport bodies, has been closer to 9 per cent. than to the consumer prices index of 3 per cent. The Government have proposed increases for the next two years of 2.3 and 2.7 per cent. Even if they think that the £212 million this year is enough, the position is not encouraging for the next two years. They must recognise that, up and down the country, local authorities face huge gaps in their funding. There may well be some generous funding, as the Minister said, but if it does not meet costs, there will be problems for local authorities.
Barnsley metropolitan borough council, for example, said:
“I do feel our authority is receiving inadequate compensation”.
Basildon council said, “We are seriously underfunded”. Bournemouth council said that
“this government grabs the headlines giving out concessionary fares”,
while
“leaving councils to pick up the mess and move on”.
Carlisle council said:
“This situation is not financially sustainable.”
I could go on, right the way through the alphabet, but I will not do so, because I know that colleagues want to make a contribution to our debate. However, the Government are clearly not listening to local authorities. When the consultation on the distribution method for the special grant was analysed, the Department for Transport reported that
“the main concern raised by many was that the additional money allocated by Government would not be sufficient to pay for the extra cost of the new all-England concession.”
Since then, countless local authorities have made representations to the Government and to many others, but to little avail. Council planners’ confusion has been exacerbated by poor, overdue Government guidance. Indicative of that is the fact that the DFT required councils to publish draft scheme details and reimbursement guidance before 1 December last year, but it published its guidelines for doing so only in January 2008. The expected delays in the deployment of smartcard technology are further evidence that while the Government expect councils to cope with short lead times, they cannot do so themselves.
At Christmas, parents spend their hard-earned cash on presents for their children, and it is Father Christmas who tends to get all the credit. The Minister says that the Government should have all the credit for giving pensioners and disabled people free bus travel, but they ignore the fact that local authorities throughout the country will have to pay for it. The Government are trying to be Father Christmas, and the local authorities will be the out-of-pocket parents.
Concessionary bus travel is a positive thing and due credit should be given to the Government for introducing it. However, they cannot grab all the congratulatory headlines, for as we shall see in the debate, it is clear that they have not met their commitment to fully fund the extension to a national concessionary travel scheme, and it is still not clear whether they have provided sufficient funding for the local concessionary travel scheme. It is clear that the local authorities and the bus operators are suffering financial shortages as a result of the extension that will come into operation. The concern must be that the travelling public and exactly those groups that the Bill is designed to help will be hardest hit by the funding.
Although we will not vote against the motion tonight, I hope that the Government will recognise that they have not met their commitment to fully fund the scheme. I hope that they will accept that an immediate review of the funding is needed and will reach an agreement to do so with local authorities and operators. I urge the Government to confirm that they will do that, for if they do not, there can be no certainty that the scheme will be a success, or that throughout the country in three years the scheme will be able to help many of the routes or the people whom it was designed to help.
I welcome this important debate and thank the Government for making time available for it. I agree with the Minister, who said that the scheme is welcome. It will tackle social exclusion, help the environment and enable people who would otherwise be in their houses to get out and travel. All those outcomes are good. I do not subscribe to Mrs. Thatcher’s view that anyone over 30 who uses a bus is a failure, as she said on one occasion. I am happy that people over 60 use buses, as do people of my age.
The Government have managed to reverse the decline in bus usage, as the Minister said. That, too, is welcome. Bus journeys declined from 9 billion journeys a year in the 1970s to 5 billion in 2005-06—a cut of almost a half. The concessionary fares scheme will enable that to be reversed. All that is good, but the problem for the Government is a problem of success. Large numbers of people will use buses—far more than the Government imagined—and local authorities will have to pick up the bill because the increase in funding that the Government have made available, significant and welcome though that is, is not equivalent to the costs that local authorities will have to pay. There is a shortfall.
I should tell the Minister that I conducted a survey of what she calls travel concession authorities. Well over half of those responded to my survey. Of those, almost half of the councils said that they were underfunded. The hardest hit councils were underfunded by £1.7 million. Those were Brighton and Hove, and Nottingham. That is equivalent to council tax rises of £40 per family. Many councils reported problems, as we have heard from hon. Members intervening on the Minister and from the Conservative Front-Bench team.
The hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way. He said that about 50 per cent. of the councils responded. Does he think that the other 50 per cent. are doing well out of the scheme, and wanted to keep quiet about it?
For the record, what I said was that more than 50 per cent. of councils responded, and almost half of those said that they were underfunded. It is perfectly possible that within the allocation given by the Government, some authorities are doing very well indeed, and keeping quiet about it. That is perfectly true. I believe that overall the scheme is probably underfunded by about £60 million. It should be around £270,000 million. Some authorities are doing very well from the allocation, but many are doing very badly indeed. It is crucial that the Minister reconfigure the scheme in the light of experience and take account of factors which, with the best will in the world, she may not have been aware of when the scheme was put together. She and her officials have probably done their best, but the reality on the ground is that local councils up and down the country are telling us that the scheme is underfunded for them. They cannot all be wrong. We have heard the list from the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond).
We shall hear of more now, I suspect.
Does my hon. Friend accept that one of the key issues is that the Government have failed to forecast the take-up of the scheme accurately? That is the real crux of the matter. In many places it is manifested by the funding shortfall about which we have heard so much already—not only that, but in areas such as Greater Manchester, which covers my constituency of Cheadle, there is the key problem of the authorities not being able to deal with the applications in time. That has led to lots of constituents telling their MPs that there have been unacceptable delays in the processing of the applications. The Greater Manchester transport authority has now said that it will make the current passes valid for an extra six months, until September this year. Frankly, that will get people from one side of Manchester to the other—not to destinations further afield, although that was one of the principal points of the scheme in the first place.
My hon. Friend is right: the problem is one of success. The Government have had a huge policy success: people out there love the concessionary bus fares and want to take up the free passes. As a consequence, local authorities are having difficulty coping with the sheer volume, and find great shortages of funding.
The Government have miscalculated the allocation to local councils. They may have made their best guess, but that is clearly well out. To compound the matter, they have arranged a three-year formula. That is a good idea when matters have settled down, but to base such a formula on an outcome that the Government cannot possibly predict accurately will in the short term compound the problems of the authorities that will be underfunded.
Does my hon. Friend think that the Minister would acknowledge that another problem of the formula is the fact that it does not take into account the number of routes available, although it may take the demographics and potential number of visitors into account? Truro is a hub for many visitors from my constituency, who will park and ride into the town to use the bus scheme, because the routes are available there. That, in turn, gives the local authority additional costs.
My hon. Friend has made a good point. There are a number of kinks in the system, and they will manifest themselves only as the scheme gets under way. That is happening as local authorities make proper assessments. No one blames the Government for making their best guess, but I am telling the Minister that it is an underestimate by some distance, and there is misallocation between authorities.
Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) intervened to ask what the Government would do if it turned out that their best guess was wrong, and the local authorities’ predictions were accurate. We have not had an answer to that. The Government need to accept that there has been a problem and correct it at the earliest opportunity.
Are there any common factors among the authorities that told my hon. Friend that they were underfunded? From what the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) said, it seems that a disproportionate number of seaside resorts are involved. Areas that attract tourists could end up carrying the biggest proportion of the underfunding.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The areas tend to be very attractive: Lib Dem constituencies, for example, are badly affected. Undoubtedly, areas such as seaside resorts and historic towns are affected.
The Minister talked about the funding mechanisms that she was employing. She wrote in a letter to me:
“The Department’s recent consultation on the funding distribution offered four formula options based on data that is likely to be closely related to the key drivers of the extra cost…Our proposed distribution formula is based on the most popular option in the consultation responses.”
She used that latter phrase again tonight. With due respect, I suggest to her that it was not the most popular option but the least unpopular option with which local authorities were faced.
Surely the only accurate way of addressing the issue is to recognise the actual costs incurred by local authorities in the scheme that is now to come into force, and ensure that there is a reimbursement process to iron out some of the difficulties. Without that, many local authorities will be well out of pocket—and that situation will be compounded for three years, which would be wrong.
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest. What is the Liberal Democrat policy on the idea of having fewer travel concession authorities and aligning transport authorities—for example, county councils—with travel concession authorities?
That is rather a red herring. The transport concession authorities are now in place. Had the allocation been made accurately, and had some of the points made previously been listened to, we would not be in this position. Even if the Government have done the best that they can, they can still put things right. There is undoubtedly complexity in this arrangement, but it still could have been got right. That has not happened, and that is part of the problem.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) mentioned some of the areas that have lost out, which are indeed seaside resorts. Brighton and Hove is short by £1.7 million, Scarborough by £0.94 million, Southampton by £0.74 million, Southend-on-Sea by £0.7 million, Worthing by £0.6 million, and Torbay, his own authority, by £0.5 million. In other tourist areas, Harrogate is short by £0.77 million and City of York by £6.5 million. My own authority, Lewes district council, is £0.6 million short, and Chester city council is £0.4 million short. Shopping areas such as Nottingham, Chelmsford and Braintree are also well out of pocket. Local authorities all over the country are finding shortfalls, and the Government must answer the question about what they are going to do if those local authorities are proven right.
Let me deal with one or two other relevant issues. Many local authorities faced with unprecedented increases in budget demands will look to make savings, and unfortunately some will look to make savings in concessionary fares. One of the unforeseen consequences of the Government scheme is that local authorities are taking away discretionary concessions and ensuring that some who currently benefit from bus pass concessions will no longer do so. For example, there is a problem with travel between 9 o’clock and 9.30 in the morning. Many local authorities start their services at 9 o’clock in the morning, but are now moving to 9.30 in a desperate attempt to save some money. In Seaford, in my constituency, there is a bus every half hour. The 9.29 bus would previously have been available to constituents with a bus pass, but is now not available: they will have to get the 9.59 bus, half an hour later, which means, in many cases, that they will miss a doctor’s appointment or whatever else they are doing in the middle of town. That is disadvantaging certain people who currently have access to bus pass arrangements.
One of the aspects that my hon. Friend has not touched on is travel between the devolved nations and England. Let me point out the difficulty that some of my constituents experienced in travelling from Knighton in my constituency to Hereford, where there is a district general hospital and major shopping centre. They were able to make the trip from Knighton to Hereford, but had to change in Kington on the way back. The bus company refused to take their concessionary fare, so they were stuck in Kington—a very fine town, I might say. The explanation is that when all this settles down it will work, but in the meantime my constituents, who expect some co-ordination, are stuck in Kington.
I hope that they are not all stuck there. My hon. Friend raises an important point about cross-border issues. He may know, as may the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper), that residents in Brockweir, which lies on the English bank of the River Wye, are unable to use their concessionary passes on their only local bus service as it runs wholly within Wales, over the bridge from the village. That is an example of the nonsense thrown up by this scheme, which the Minister and her colleagues need to rectify. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) also raised the consequences for cross-border services. He will know, as will the Minister, I hope, about Borders general hospital near Melrose. It is on the Scottish side of the border but is the nearest hospital for many people living in England. People who have to cross the border are disadvantaged by the way in which the scheme is operating. That is a key issue.
The position becomes worse when local transport authorities say that they cannot afford to run all the buses that are subsidised, which leads to the ludicrous situation whereby more and more people qualify for concessionary bus passes yet the number of buses that they can use is diminishing. They have the piece of paper entitling them to use a bus but there will not be a bus to use, because local authorities are forced into cutting services. That has not been factored into the equation. Neither has the fact that there will be successful appeals by bus companies. They are keen to make appeals, and of course they will test the water and try to get as much money as possible from local councils. It would be strange if they did not behave in that way.
The Minister said earlier that £6.5 million had been awarded to bus companies from successful appeals, and she took some comfort from the fact that they had applied for £28 million and received only a quarter of that amount. I have to say that it will not provide much comfort to the local authorities paying out the £6.5 million that the other £21.5 million was not granted through the appeal process. That is money that could not have been anticipated, but it has had to be spent by the local authorities. So a number of major problems have been thrown up by the scheme.
The Government have introduced a popular policy that has been well received by the population at large, but we are now seeing the problems that are resulting from its success. The Government cannot close their eyes and say that they have a fair solution that meets all the local demands, and that it is for the local authorities to sort the problems out. The Government have created a mess. I do not blame them for creating the mess, but it is a mess in financial terms, and the local authorities have been lumbered with tidying it up. The Government must recognise that many local authorities are now genuinely well out of pocket, and provide a guarantee that they will review the scheme not after three years but at the end of the first year. If the case can be made to stand up—as I believe it can—that a significant number of local authorities are well out of pocket, and that the overall settlement of £212 million is inadequate, the Minister should pledge to ensure that the scheme will be properly funded in future, and that the costs that local authorities are incurring will be reimbursed.
May I take it from that contribution that the Liberal Democrats’ policy is to put more money in? At least we know where we are with them. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) refused to say that the Conservatives would do so, and refused to say that they would change the mechanism by which the money was given to the local authorities. I understand that he is in a difficult position.
May I just correct the hon. Gentleman? The first part of his point was correct. I said that the Government were saying that they were fully funding the scheme, but that that did not appear to be so. I also said, however, that we would look at the funding formula.
I accept that, but when the hon. Gentleman was asked whether he was in favour of dealing with the issue at county level instead of through the 342 different authorities, he had no answer.
Won’t 1 April 2008 be a great day, when 11 million pensioners and disabled people will be able to cross borders and enjoy life more—[Interruption.] I voted for devolution, but I am not sure about those on the Opposition Benches. There are bound to be differences. The reality is that the scheme will be very popular in my constituency. I can see my constituents going to the Lake district, or perhaps to the Metro centre in Newcastle. I can see them catching the train to Blackpool, then using the buses in Blackpool. We have heard people going on about tourist areas, but those areas will be getting more custom, as people will be spending money in those constituencies. That should have been pointed out.
There is one important point that seaside resorts have been extremely concerned about. They might get extra custom, but they will also incur additional costs that they cannot recoup from the visitor. That is a problem for every seaside resort.
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that people should stay away from his constituency? It sounds like that to me.
The reality is that the scheme will provide free travel for pensioners and the disabled, but £1 billion is going to the bus companies, and I worry about that. In my constituency, Stagecoach has cynically put up the single fare by 7.5 per cent. Many of us believe that that was done to offset the amount that it will lose through concessionary fares.
Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that that factor alone represents an increase for local authorities up and down the country, through the increase in bus fares, that cannot have been factored in by the Government?
I actually think that there should be challenges to the bus companies. They are not supposed to make a profit from the concessionary fares, because under EU rules, that would be seen as state subsidy and would therefore not be allowed.
The main point that I want to make is that we need to move as quickly as possible from funding the scheme on a district basis to funding it on a county basis. We know that that cannot be done overnight, and we know the reason for that, but it has not been mentioned. A lot of district councils receive a lot more money than they spend on concessionary fares, and they spend it on other things. If we take that money away from those councils their MPs will start carping, and if we do it immediately, council tax will increase or services will be reduced. That is because some local authorities could have introduced concessionary fares, but decided to spend the money on other things. That must come to an end.
Carlisle has been mentioned. Carlisle city council has said that it is underfunded—but it would say that. It is controlled by the Tories and Lib Dems, and before the previous election it made a pledge that it would give free cross-border travel throughout the day, but then said, “We’re going to cut it now—it’s got to be the national scheme, starting at 9.30.” That was fortunate, in a way, because the individual who used his vote to clinch that decision—there was only a majority of one—happens to be my Conservative opponent at the next election, and I do not think that the pensioners of Carlisle will forgive him for that.
Then there was a row among the Conservatives. They came back and said, “No, we’re going to give it to the disabled now. They can have free travel all day, but the pensioners can’t.” I had an old lady ring me up and say, “I’ve got a pass here that they’ve sent me. I’m a pensioner and I’m disabled, but now I’ve got a letter saying I have to send the pass back, then they’ll send me another one because I’m disabled.” That is the sort of council that we have in Carlisle—a council that can’t make decisions and breaks pledges. I make a prediction that the Conservatives will lose control of the city council at the local elections. Labour will control Carlisle because of that issue.
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that it would be an improvement if the Government scheme ran from 9 o’clock in the morning, too?
No, I am not suggesting that at all. I am suggesting that local authorities should keep their promises. I forgot to say that the other person who voted against the scheme was the Liberal Democrats’ prospective candidate for Carlisle. We should have known that they would vote against it.
To be serious and to return to the major issue, if we are to have a truly nationwide scheme that does not have winners and losers, we need to move quickly to a county-wide basis. We have heard the arguments from Derbyshire and various other authorities; it could have been Somerset where it was argued that one of the authorities was no longer part of the loop. The scheme is not working, and we really need a system funded by the counties. If that happens—we will have to let councils have time to adjust—the Government will no longer have to put in any money at all, because the money is there, but in some cases has not gone to the right authorities. [Interruption.] That is true, and I have explained why. In the case of Carlisle, the money has gone to the local authority; it has just not been spending it.
If the hon. Gentleman accepts that some money has been misallocated and gone to the wrong authorities—I agree with him on that—does he think it wrong for the Government to have a three-year funding arrangement? Should they not review it after a year?
My view is that the hon. Gentleman should perhaps have listened more carefully. The system has to be put on a county-wide basis. It is no good adjusting the system in three years. We have to move to a totally different system. If we do that, we will have a better system, as well as larger authorities to negotiate with the likes of Stagecoach, First Group or National Express. The idea of my local authority arguing the case against Stagecoach frightens me, because to be honest I do not think that it is up to the job. We need large authorities to do that.
Let us return to the main point. The scheme is a great success. The Labour Government have promised to do this, and they are doing it. People will get the benefit in my constituency, and up and down the land, on 1 April this year. If it had been left up to the Opposition parties they would have talked about it forever, but they would never have found the money.
I do not intend to detain the House for long, but I want to raise one issue, and a spin-off problem. We have heard in the debate so far, particularly from the Opposition Benches, a common thread to many of the complaints: despite the majestic efforts of the Minister to spin the situation, it is not quite as rosy as she claims. The Government are not providing the full funding, despite the glowing percentage increases that she has cited. Of course it is possible to have glowing percentage increases if one does not take into account the other costs involved with a scheme. Moreover, what figures do those percentages relate to, and do they relate to the estimated cost of funding a scheme fully?
As I said to the Minister in an intervention, an independent study has been done by independent people on behalf of the Government, in conjunction with local authorities, to work out the cost of a fully funded scheme along the lines of what the Government have promised. Taking my local authority of Chelmsford borough council as an example, it was independently assessed that in order to fund the scheme fully the council would have to be given £1.1 million. The Government have actually provided £413,000 for the coming year, which leaves a shortfall of £738,000. That is a considerable amount of money. The borough council has to look for efficiency savings and switch around some of its priorities to help pay for the scheme, which it is determined to make a success for those who look forward to its starting on 1 April.
There is a second problem because of the underfunding. Under the ambit of the Government’s proposals, the scheme has to start at 9.30 in the morning, but under Chelmsford borough council’s scheme, the start time was 9 am. A responsible council cannot cut services dramatically in other areas due to the shortfall in funding, because that would cause significant problems, over and above efficiency savings. It will have to abide by the Government’s guidelines of a 9.30 start, because it cannot find the money for a scheme that is based on the Government’s scheme but that starts at 9 am. That will cause problems for a number of pensioners and disabled people in the Chelmsford borough council area who for a number of reasons have got used to using their bus passes from 9 o’clock; it may be convenient or necessary for them to travel at that time.
It is sad that there should be an element to this scheme, which is welcomed by everybody in this House in many ways, that spoils the overall effect. That has happened solely because the Government are not prepared to provide the full funding that independent assessors have said the scheme needs. I hope that the Minister will take the advice of a number of hon. Members in interventions and speeches today, and monitor the scheme from its start date of 1 April. A year may be too short a period of time for that—experience and time will tell. If the period in question is to be three years—a three-year period is not viable for the Minister and her Government, because they will not be in office to do this—I hope that the Government of the day are prepared to look at the scheme again to identify its strengths and weaknesses in order to address maintaining the strengths and buttressing the weaknesses.
Given the limited time available I shall focus on one issue and pick up the point I raised in my intervention on the Minister.
As one steps through the report, it is very clear that it is not a national scheme at all, but an England scheme. When the Prime Minister, then the Chancellor, promised the scheme, it was clearly spun and reported as a national scheme, so many of my constituents quite rightly thought that that meant they could travel anywhere in the UK. As has already been said by hon. Members with constituencies in Wales or near the Scottish borders, this has been a severe let-down. The impression was certainly given that the scheme would be UK-wide, but that has clearly not been delivered. All I ask for is a little honesty. Ministers should not use the word “national”; they should say only “England” to make it clear that the scheme allows people not to cross national borders but only local authority ones. Ministers should be honest about what exactly they are promising.
I said in my intervention that the scheme does not mean much to many of my constituents, and that is exactly right. If someone needs to travel across the border into Wales, the scheme will not help. A constituent who lives in Lydney can get the bus from there to Chepstow, but continuing will mean changing in Chepstow and paying for the rest of the journey. For many of my constituents, that will be the more significant part of the journey. Because of the geography, someone starting a journey from the southern end of my constituency and wanting to go back into England will have to pass through Wales. If that means changing buses, even though the start and end points of the trip are both in England, it will not be possible to claim for the cost of the whole journey. That is a ridiculous situation.
Someone starting in Lydney who has to catch a bus to Chepstow and then change, perhaps to go to Cribbs Causeway, which is also in England, will have to fund the bulk of the trip themselves. My constituents think that that is simply bizarre. It is all very well saying that the local authority has the option to fund that part of the journey: of course it does, but it will cost money, and it means that the Government have made a promise but not funded it. Something else will have to give—either council tax will have to rise or other services will not be funded. The Minister should take that into account and work on it with her colleagues in the Welsh Assembly Government.
Let me take hon. Members through some of the questions that I have asked on this issue. When I challenged the then Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), by asking him whether he would work with his colleagues in the Welsh Assembly Government
“to take up that framework legislation to ensure that we can have seamless journeys across the English-Welsh border”,
he replied:
“Indeed. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that Welsh Assembly Government Ministers will do that.”—[Official Report, 17 January 2001; Vol. 455, c. 772.]
When I asked the then Transport Minister, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), the same sort of question, she pointed out in a written parliamentary answer that the Concessionary Bus Travel Bill had a framework for working closely with the devolved Administrations and that all had “indicated support”. She said—this was in May last year—that the Government and the devolved Administrations would have to work closely together. We do not seem to have made a great deal of progress since then.
When I questioned the present Minister in oral questions in December, she said that she wanted
“to see the scheme operating properly across the borders”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2007; Vol. 468, c. 670.]
When I challenged the Minister responsible for Transport in the Welsh Assembly Government on that matter, however, he said that he wanted to see the scheme “settle down”. That was not the Minister’s position at the time, but I notice that the two have now got their act together and co-ordinated their responses, as the Minister is now saying that she wants the scheme to settle down.
I do not see why my constituents should have to cope with an unholy mess on 1 April as they discover that they cannot use the scheme for many of the journeys that they need to take—going to hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, dentists and so forth. Why should they be denied that? Why should they have to wait for the scheme to “settle down” while the Westminster Government and the Welsh Assembly Government try to get their act together to ensure that the scheme will work across borders?
I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government say that they have made no detailed assessment of the cost of introducing mutual recognition, yet they produced generalised financial arguments against it. Should they not at least be doing that work now?
Absolutely, and I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that point. The Minister suggested that mutual recognition would be very expensive. If we accept that that is the case, it follows that it would be very expensive for local authorities to fund mutual recognition across the borders. They cannot be expected to fund that from the limited resources available to them through the council tax. Many of their constituents are already hard pressed. If Ministers make generous promises, they should ensure that they fund them fully, as they have made clear throughout, but I do not think that they have done so, and they certainly have not done so in a way that allows my constituents to take advantage of a genuinely national scheme. This is an England-only scheme, and it needs to be looked at again.
This has been a very interesting debate, although I am not sure that it has been particularly enlightening in respect of the position of the Opposition parties. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) refused to say how much extra he thought should be invested in the concessionary fares scheme. He certainly did not tell us whether a Conservative manifesto would include a commitment to providing extra funds, and whether that had been cleared with the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne). The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) wanted the scheme to be extended even further. It would be interesting to know whether the Conservative Front-Bench team intends to fund the extra costs of extending the scheme to Wales and Scotland.
I know that the right hon. Lady is always fascinated by what our policies are, but I remind her that the debate was about her policies. I assume that her fascination is due to the fact that in two years’ time she will be where I am now, and she is considering how she might oppose our policies.
Given all the unfunded schemes that the hon. Gentleman listed this evening, I think the electorate will recognise that without a Labour Government there would not be a national concessionary fares scheme, and there would not be nearly £1 billion going into it. The Conservative Government ran down bus services after deregulating the market. What we heard tonight were vague promises of unspecified future funding to which, as far as I know, the shadow Chancellor has not given the go-ahead. The same applies to the Liberal Democrats. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) said that an extra £60 million was needed, and he too seemed to want to extend the system to Scotland and Wales. If that is a manifesto commitment from the Liberal Democrats, it would be interesting to know how their sums add up.
I have only three minutes left, and I want to mention the important points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), particularly his point about the boost to the economy given by people coming into an area. The Liberal Democrats, and perhaps other Opposition Members, appeared to be saying “Our town is closed to visitors.” I am sure that the shopkeepers and restaurateurs in their areas will not be very pleased to hear that they do not welcome people from outside.
My hon. Friend mentioned the 7 per cent. fare increase imposed by one bus company. This is an issue that some Members overlooked in their speeches. Local authorities must take into account not just one increase but the whole basket of fares in reaching agreement with bus operators on what constitutes a fair reimbursement.
The hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) spoke of an “independent assessor”. No independent assessor supplied an analysis to the Department for Transport. I believe that someone in the bus world has carried out assessments for bus operators, but that is entirely different from an independent assessment carried out for the Government. The hon. Gentleman may be confusing these arrangements with the appeals system.
The three-year settlement is very generous. I take on board some of the points that have been made about the possibility of county-wide settlements in the future, and we will keep that under review, but 11 million older and disabled people will benefit from this scheme. I think we should welcome it, and I commend the report to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Local Government Finance Special Grant Report (No. 129) on the grant to be paid towards the cost of implementing the new statutory minimum bus travel concession in England (House of Commons Paper No. 256), which was laid before this House on 19th February, be approved.
DELEGATED LEGISLATION
With permission, I shall put motions 4 to 11 together,
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees),
Social Security
That the draft Child Benefit Up-rating Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 6th February, be approved.
Social Security, Northern Ireland
That the draft Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 6th February, be approved.
Social Security
That the draft Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 6th February, be approved.
Tax Credits
That the draft Tax Credits Up-rating Regulations 2008, which were laid before this House on 6th February, be approved.
Proceeds of Crime
That the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cash Searches: Code of Practice) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 19th February, be approved.
That the draft Serious Crime Act 2007 (Amendment of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 20th February, be approved.
That the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: Code of Practice) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 19th February, be approved.
Official Statistics
That the draft Official Statistics Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 26th February, be approved.—[Alison Seabeck.]
Question agreed to.
committees
With the leave of the House, I will put motions 12 and 13 together.
Ordered,
Consolidation, &c., Bills
That Mr Nick Clegg be discharged from the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills, and Mr Alistair Carmichael be added.
Finance and Services
That Sir Alan Haselhurst be added to the Finance and Services Committee.––[Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection].
War Widows’ Pensions (Tina Thompson)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Alison Seabeck.]
I wish to bring to the Minister’s attention the case of my constituent, Tina Thompson, and her young son Aidan. Tina’s husband and Aidan’s father, Sergeant Michael Thompson, was a 38-year-old soldier with a 17-year career in the Army. His service included two tours of duty in Iraq, as well as Kosovo, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. He served with the Royal Logistics Corps.
Sergeant Thompson worked at the Joint Service Signal Unit—JSSU—in Ayia Nikolias in Cyprus, although the family was housed at Dhekelia garrison as there had been no suitable family accommodation at Ayia Nikolias at the time. The camps are 11 miles apart.
Sergeant Thompson used often to travel to work on his motorbike. The family was due to move to a house at Ayia Nikolias on 21 July. It was a move that the family never made in the end, because on 14 July 2005 he was killed in a road traffic accident by St. Raphael church on the Larnaca-Famagusta road on a fine day on a dry asphalt surface, when a Nissan pick-up truck signalled to turn right.
The driver stopped before turning right to allow another vehicle to pass from the opposite direction. When the road was clear, the driver began his manoeuvre to turn right at the same time as Sergeant Thompson began overtaking the pick-up from the right-hand side. His motorcycle collided with the pick-up’s offside rear door and then offside front door. As a result of the collision he was thrown off the bike, on to the windscreen and finally under the truck. Sergeant Thompson received fatal injuries. The driver was finally prosecuted for driving without due care and attention in October 2007, and was found guilty and fined £600.
Most of us who value our armed services and the bond between our forces and ourselves would expect the widow and bereaved family to be treated with sympathy, understanding and compassion. From this point, however, sadly this has not been the case. As well as the inevitable trauma and grief that would follow a sudden and tragic accident such as this, my constituent Tina Thompson has been forced to fight tooth-and-nail to receive the full pension normally awarded to service personnel killed on duty.
Mrs. Thompson has said that
“the pain of losing my husband was incredible but fighting the Government for a small allowance to bring up our son is not something that I ever would have imagined having to go through.”
I think most right-thinking people would echo those sentiments.
However, The Ministry of Defence has ruled that Mrs. Thompson and her son are entitled to only half the normal pension because Sergeant Thompson was on his way to work at the time of the accident and in its eyes not officially on duty nor responding to an emergency, although he was demonstrating his loyalty and attention to duty by leaving his home some hours before he would normally have needed to do so.
The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency refused to pay the full pension. Mrs. Thompson, in the midst of her grief, was forced to make an appeal against this decision and won a pension appeal tribunal ruling in her favour that she should receive the full pension.
Unaccountably, despite oft-expressed sentiments of the Ministry’s support and admiration for service personnel, it appealed against the decision and Mrs. Thompson’s pension was reduced by 50 per cent. She now received £388 a month, which I must repeat is a 50 per cent. reduction in that previously awarded. She made an appeal to the pensions commissioner against this decision last year, but it was unfortunately unsuccessful. To heap further insult on to injury, Mrs. Thompson was not officially informed of the final decision, but instead heard about it through her stepson on Christmas eve 2007. We are talking about more than two years of waiting and fighting for what most of us would have expected Mrs. Thompson was fully entitled to receive, and what we as a grateful nation would have seen to be a matter of natural justice.
Ever a fighter, Mrs. Thompson has again decided, with the assistance of the Royal British Legion, to fight on and to take the case to the Court of Appeal, although she could face a bill for legal costs of tens of thousands of pounds if the action fails. She has said:
“I am disappointed and really upset, it’s heartbreaking and it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet…I always thought the MOD would be there to help families and people who have lost loved ones while they were serving their country.”
She has also said:
“Most single parents find it a struggle and we have been left alone, the only help we have had has been from the British Legion.”
Indeed, the Royal British Legion featured Mrs. Thompson and Aidan in its recent poppy appeal in November. To compound Mrs. Thompson’s problems, on return from Cyprus, apart from assistance with the funeral, she has been without help from the Ministry of Defence or the Army. She says:
“I felt we had been abandoned. Out of sight, out of mind.”
I would like the Minister to look into several points on her behalf. First, apart from one contact from a welfare officer in 2005, there has been no further assistance. Mrs. Thompson found for herself the Army inquiries and aftercare section, and she has had to initiate the contact herself. Secondly, it took almost two years for her to receive a copy of the police report into the accident and she had to obtain that for herself from a solicitor in Cyprus who is pursuing a civil claim for compensation from the other driver.
Thirdly, the black country coroner has requested details of the accident from the authorities so that he can conduct an inquest. However, the authorities in Cyprus are unable to release the relevant papers until the Attorney-General allows it—that is still outstanding. Finally Mrs. Thompson requires advice as to whether she is able to contest the police report, if she will be invited to the inquest, what actions the Army has taken or is taking against the third party, and what has happened to her husband’s personal effects, especially the motorbike. Mrs. Thompson has been let down in her hour of need. Surely concern and compassion is called for when unexpected accidents such as this strike service personnel and their families. I put it directly to the Minister that if he has any ministerial discretion, surely this is a case crying out for it to be used.
In summary, Mrs Thompson lost her husband, her son will never know his father and her initial grief was compounded by the fact that she only received half of that to which she was entitled. Mrs. Thompson had the full amount of pension restored on appeal but has once again lost 50 per cent. of the pension to which she thought she was entitled and must now face the trauma and suspense of a further protracted legal battle for which she now may lose her home to pay the fees to receive what most of us would describe as her right.
Finally, the military covenant states:
“This mutual obligation…between the Nation, the Army and each individual soldier; an unbreakable common bond of identity, loyalty and responsibility which has sustained the Army throughout its history.”
I stress the phrase “mutual obligation”. Surely as a nation we are obliged to treat our service personnel and their relatives with respect and compassion. Alas, those sentiments appear to be sadly lacking in this case.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) on securing the time for this important debate and wish to place on record my appreciation for the support she gives to service personnel, and veterans and the interest that she takes generally in these issues. I know that she has a good relationship with her local veterans’ organisations. I know that that is part of her general approach to supporting service personal.
The pensions and compensation awarded to sailors, soldiers and airmen and women who are injured in the service of their country, and to the families of those who sadly lose their lives, are an important topic. I am sure that the House will pay tribute to the sterling work of the armed forces and their courage, sacrifice and professionalism. Families, of course, play a vital role in supporting them, particularly through some difficult times.
The Government are fully committed to meeting their duty of care to serving personnel, veterans and families. That is recognised by many, including the Royal British Legion, which has acknowledged the number of improvements that we have made over recent years. We have, for example, seen a number of improvements in the programmes governing service pay, accommodation, health and welfare provisions, force protection and personal equipment. We recognise, however, that there is still scope for improvement and we continue to work on that, which is why we have announced a cross-Government personnel Command Paper, which is due to report this spring.
On 8 November 2007, the Government announced work to develop the first ever cross-Government strategy for supporting our service personnel, their families and veterans. The Command Paper will outline steps taken so far and future initiatives to enhance the Government’s support. Work on the paper is being led by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces and will fully involve the service chiefs. We will also involve service and ex-service organisations. The intention is to ensure we have in place a framework of policies and practical services to meet the needs of our service personnel, veterans and their families.
I accept that things could be improved and that they have gone wrong in the past. We are working continually to improve the overall support that we give our service personnel, their families and veterans, because providing the correct level of support to bereaved families is a crucial part of supporting our armed forces. I was sorry to hear the issues raised by my hon. Friend this evening, and I assure her that I will get back to her on them and will find out what happened in this case.
The Ministry of Defence assists in a number of ways, including through the work of trained in-service visiting officers who are appointed to act as a liaison between the bereaved family and the services for as long as the family require it. Again, I am disappointed to hear that Mrs. Thompson has not heard anything since 2005.
Of course, the MOD has made a number of improvements to the support that it gives to bereaved families. The number of family members who receive travel and accommodation expenses to attend repatriation ceremonies has been increased from five to seven. Two family members are able to reclaim the costs of their attendance at pre-inquest hearings and funding is already provided for two family members who wish to attend the full inquest. A tax-free funeral grant is offered to families. If the family wishes to hold a service funeral, arrangements and funding are provided by the MOD. A further tax-free grant of £500 will be introduced for the next of kin to meet any personal costs that they might occur as a result of their bereavement.
My hon. Friend raised specifically the case of Mrs. Tina Thompson, to whom I offer my condolences, and I am sure that the rest of the House will join me in that. I cannot imagine what a traumatic and difficult time it has been for Mrs. Thompson since the loss of her husband due to his death in a motor accident in Cyprus in 2005. I pay tribute to him for his service in a number of military theatres and operations with the armed forces.
As my hon. Friend said, Mrs. Thompson has sought permission to appeal her case to the Court of Appeal. I ask my hon. Friend to understand that my remarks will therefore focus on the general provisions of the armed forces compensation scheme and pensions scheme, rather than on the particulars of Mrs. Thompson’s case. It is important to put what the schemes provide on the record.
I want to draw the attention of the House to the decision of the independent pensions appeal commissioner, and his findings that
“service was not the predominant cause of”
Sergeant Thompson’s death, that
“at the time of his death, he was not on duty”
and that
“at that time, he was not responding to an emergency.”
I appreciate the point that the Minister has just made. The question of what constitutes an emergency was a large part of the inquiry. Sergeant Thompson believed that he was responding to an emergency at his place of work, and so he left home two hours before he would normally have done so. He believed that it was an emergency. It appears that the letter of the law defines an emergency as something different. I feel that it is possible that the MOD is hiding behind that point of law. That is one issue that I want the Minister to address when he can.
I can assure my hon. Friend that we are not hiding behind a point of law. I have drawn the House’s attention to the decision of the independent pensions appeal commissioner and his findings on this case. I cannot go into the details of the case because there is an appeal pending, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that.
The award under the armed forces compensation scheme, which came into effect in April 2005, compensates for pain and suffering and is made under a tariff-based system, which is informed by existing established models such as the Judicial Studies Board’s guidelines for the assessment of general damages in personal injury cases and the criminal injuries compensation scheme. The most seriously injured are also awarded a guaranteed income payment. This is a tax-free, index-linked payment made every month from discharge. Between the lump sum and the GIP, individuals can receive hundreds of thousands of pounds over a lifetime. Unlike other compensation schemes, the armed forces compensation scheme has no monetary cap.
We have monitored the scheme closely in the light of experience and the scheme is due for a full review in 2010. At the end of last year, we recognised that the scheme was not fully meeting its policy intent of focusing resources on the most seriously injured. We have made changes to the rules relating to those who have suffered multiple injuries from a single incident to reflect better the serious and complex nature of some of the injuries that servicemen and women were receiving on operations. Because of improvements in body armour and medical care, people are surviving injuries that they might not have survived just a few years ago.
The scheme also provides for the families of those who lose their lives due to service. In such cases, a survivor’s guaranteed income payment is made to the husband, wife, or civil partner for the rest of their lives—regardless of their own financial position or any future changes. This payment is based on 60 per cent. of the guaranteed income payment that the spouse would have been eligible to receive. There is also a child’s payment awarded to the deceased’s children and paid until the child is aged 18, or 23 if they remain in full-time education. This is set at 25 per cent. of the guaranteed income payment if there is one child, or, if there are more, the remaining 40 per cent. of the GIP is split between them. There is also a lump sum bereavement grant of up to £20,000 paid to the surviving spouse.
I am sure that the House will agree that while no amount of money can adequately compensate a family for the premature death of a husband or wife, a father or mother, the armed forces compensation scheme provides an appropriate level of no-fault compensation both for those injured and for the families of those killed as a result of their service in the armed forces.
Of course, the armed forces compensation scheme is not the only scheme to provide financial support for the family of deceased servicemen and women. Provision is also made under the armed forces pension schemes, and this is particularly relevant for those whose family members die while serving in the armed forces but not actually due to service.
Under the rules of the armed forces pension scheme 1975, for those cases where death occurs while in service but not due to service, a pension is paid to the surviving spouse or civil partner. Initially this will be a short-term family pension equal to the daily rate of pensionable pay. This is paid for the first 91 days, or for twice that if there are children. Thereafter the surviving partner receives a pension set at 50 per cent. of the level of pension that would have been payable to the serviceman or woman had they survived, but instead left service on the date they died. Any children receive a share of the remaining 50 per cent. of the pension, up to a maximum of 25 per cent. for a single child. The surviving spouse will also have received a lump sum payment equal to either three times the member’s annual pension or twice the full invaliding rate of pension applicable to the rank of the individual involved, whichever is greater.
In 2005, the 1975 pensions scheme was closed to new entrants, and a new, more modern scheme introduced. All existing members of the 1975 scheme were given the opportunity to transfer to the armed forces pension scheme 2005, which remains the extant scheme. This provides for a tax-free lump sum payment of four times pensionable pay—an increase in what would have been payable under the 1975 scheme. It also provides for a pension based on the pension that the individual would have received had they been medically discharged, enhanced by half the remaining time the individual would have been expected to serve up to the typical pension age of 55. Dependants can also receive a pension.
It is important to understand that these substantial death-in-service benefits are available to surviving spouses, irrespective of the circumstances in which the serviceman or woman died. This distinguishes them from the additional payments available under the armed forces compensation scheme, which are only payable if a death is due to service, but ensures that no family is left without a means of support.
To give an illustration, and depending on earnings and age, for a sergeant that could equal a tax-free lump sum payment of more than £100,000, and a taxable pension in the region of £6,000 a year. In addition, the monthly payment to any children would further increase the size of the total award. To reiterate, these awards are payable to the family of any individual who dies in service, regardless of whether they are eligible for additional awards under the armed forces compensation scheme.
No amount of money can adequately compensate for the loss of a loved one. Additional awards are made to those families whose loved ones die while they are on duty, or for whom their service is the predominant cause of death. That is only appropriate, but the Ministry of Defence can and does ensure that any family left behind have some time and space to adjust to their loss without financial worries. It also provides ongoing support to any spouse or children left behind.
We want members of the armed forces and their families to get the fair deal that they deserve, and we will provide support in all circumstances, especially when the worst possibilities come to pass. I am sure that the House will agree that a lot has been done to support armed forces personnel and their families.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge has raised some important points about what is a very difficult case, with which she has been closely involved. While the appeal that is taking place means that I cannot comment on the details, I repeat that I am concerned to hear that Mrs. Thompson does not believe that she had the support that she should have had from the time of her bereavement. My hon. Friend said that Mrs. Thompson was last contacted by a welfare officer in 2005, and that there are problems to do with the coroner’s inquiries and personal effects. I repeat my earlier promise that I will get back to her as soon as possible with the information that she needs for her constituent.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Twelve o’clock.