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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. Hon. Members cannot just stand up when the Secretary of State is addressing the House. They must wait to see whether he gives way.
Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The House will recall that, earlier today, the Speaker said that, when Government documents were quoted, they must be placed on the Table of the House. The Secretary of State has referred to Government documents, Cabinet and other meetings, and told the House that it should wait until Lord Scott replies before commenting on the matter. Those documents should be made available to the House ; otherwise the Scott inquiry is just a way of silencing the House in its task of establishing the accountability of Ministers.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Madam Speaker's ruling was clear on state papers and direct quotations therefrom.
Mr. Heseltine : In the event, as I said, Iraq--
Mr. Benn : Further to my point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With great respect, Cabinet papers are state papers. There is no distinction between one type of state paper and another. The Secretary of State has quoted from a state paper, and that paper should now be made available to the House.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : It appears that Cabinet papers are not state papers. I shall take further advice and report to the House later.
Mr. Heseltine : In the event, Iraq invaded Kuwait. These proposals were not considered further and were never implemented. The House will be aware--
Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) : The President of the Board of Trade has stated that, when the Overseas and Defence Committee of the Cabinet, on 19 July 1990, considered the possibility of changing the guidelines on the embargo--I quote the words which he has offered this afternoon--"circumstances had changed." Did the Committee take into account the fact that among the circumstances that had changed was the fact that it was known that Iraq was seeking to acquire nuclear triggers to manufacture nuclear weapons ? Did the changed circumstances include the knowledge that it had become public that Iraq was trying to manufacture a supergun with British parts ? Did the Committee consider the fact that, three days before it met, The Sunday Times had published a story about British-manufactured titanium parts for the manufacture of Iraqi missiles ? In the circumstances, was it appropriate for the Committee to recommend relaxation of the guidelines ?
Mr. Heseltine : The right hon. Gentleman is as aware as I am that that is precisely why we are having an inquiry. We are having one precisely to establish who knew and who should have known and whether these matters should properly have been taken into account. That is the purpose of the inquiry.
The House will be aware that publicly available memoranda were submitted to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry for its inquiry into supergun and exports to Iraq in general. The memoranda listed details of the exports from January 1987 to August 1990.
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Mr. Corbyn : Will the President of the Board of Trade give way ?
The House will be interested to know that during that period--January 1987 to August 1990--Iraq concluded contracts for the import of defence equipment worth an estimated $11.3 billion. Contracts placed with United Kingdom companies during that period were worth only $200 million, less than 2 per cent. of Iraqi procurement.
Even today, there have been references to export credit guarantees supporting sales of defence goods to Iraq, and suggestions that the taxpayer will be paying £200 million for the sales. The facts are as follows. The Export Credits Guarantee Department provided support for United Kingdom exports from 1984 onwards under a series of intergovernmental protocols. These covered both short-term and medium-term credits. From 1985 onwards, however, a limit was applied to medium-term credit for defence-related goods. As the hon. Member for Livingston said, at the end of 1985 the limit was 20 per cent. The total of medium-term export credits taken up between 1983 and 1989 for defence-related goods came to just £54.3 million, or 6 per cent. of medium-term credit taken up for all goods by Iraq. That is entirely different from the figure produced by the hon. Gentleman a few minutes ago. When he quoted the amounts that are outstanding--that have not been repaid by Iraq--he was talking in the main, with the exception of the £54.3 million to which I have referred, about goods for peaceful purposes--industrial contracts in British factories for British jobs.
All exports, whether benefiting from short-term or medium-term credits, were subject to export licensing regulations and any claim against export credit would normally be invalid if such a licence had not been obtained. The defence-related equipment supplied under medium-term credit did not include armaments of any sort. It ranged from radio communications equipment to power supplies, video recording systems and diesel test equipment.
That brings me to the allegation that, while rules were in place, they were flouted with ministerial connivance, if not positive encouragement. The seriousness of such allegations cannot be overstated, but nor can they be examined with the care that is appropriate without a full and independent inquiry. Certainly, they cannot be examined with only partial discovery of the evidence or selective quotations. That is why the Government immediately set up an inquiry under Lord Justice Scott.
Of course there was a continuing debate in Whitehall about the desirability of individual export contracts. Some were turned down--for example, Hawk aircraft, civilian helicopters and small boats. That is clearly established. Clearly, Ministers and officials had to weigh what were often conflicting interests in changing circumstances. In interpreting policy guidelines, judgments had to be made about British contracts for British factories offering British jobs in circumstances where others in other nations were queuing up to fill the orders if we did not. No Government can escape, or should try to do so, from their legitimate consideration of our national interest in these circumstances.
I shall return to the Scott inquiry.
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Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Will the President of the Board of Trade allow me to intervene?
I make the point at this stage--
Mr. Dalyell : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
I make the point at this stage. The Opposition demanded an inquiry under the Tribunal of Inquiries (Evidence) Act 1921. That was the request of the Leader of the Opposition. If we had agreed to it, the debate would not be taking place today. Little of the press coverage would have been permitted. The first consequence of a 1921 Act inquiry is that the matter becomes sub judice. Secondly, the time scale is likely to be of a different order. It is fair to say, however, that one advantage of such an inquiry is that the country might have been spared the activities of the hon. Member for Livingston.
Mr. Dalyell : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
The hon. Member for Livingston applied all his energies to blaming my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman was the impresario who so debased the general election campaign with the cynical exploitation of a five-year-old girl. He has been up to his old tricks again. The headline screamed, "Cook Reveals All". You and I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, might have faced so daunting a prospect with less than our usual equanimity. The hon. Gentleman is not exactly what one might call a Chippendale.
Behind the gory headline, it was obvious--
Mr. Dalyell : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
It was obvious that this matter was being played for every piece of applause that the hon. Member for Livingston could find. He had no intention that--
Mr. Dalyell : Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I shall be most grateful if the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) will resume his seat. It is clear that the Secretary of State will not give way at this stage.
Mr. Heseltine : The hon. Member for Livingston had no intention that all the evidence should be produced at once for a full appreciation of the matter. Not a bit of it. It was to be a selected quotation here and an inaccuracy there for day after day. It was to be another revelation and another gathering of pencil-sucking journalists, with row after row of discarded raincoats. It was not to be done with the flourish of a sort of Soho stripper. This was not a striptease, it was a Cooktease.
I shall give the House two examples of the hon. Gentleman's techniques. In his letter to the Prime Minister on 13 November, he quoted Lord Trefgarne, then a Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, as saying that the operation of the ministerial guidelines had
"weakened to the point of extinction."
I shall give the House the full quotation.
Mr. Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) : Another state document?
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Mr. Heseltine : It is a document from which the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend quoted. However, I shall not quote it selectively ; I shall quote the whole passage, which states :
"The continuing ceasefire has necessitated reconsideration of the operation of the ministerial guidelines and weakened to the point of extinction any case for prohibiting exports of general purpose industrial equipment for fear that it might be put to military use." That is a very different letter. If the hon. Gentleman cannot even quote accurately from Government documents, what credence can we place on his preposterous allegations about the extent of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's knowledge of the affair?
Mr. Benn : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has now said that he is quoting from a state document-- [Interruption.] Yes, he said that. I am asking you to protect the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker ; I am not engaging in argument. The House has responsibilities in this matter and the Secretary of State is quoting from a state document. Every Cabinet paper states, "This paper is the property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government." A state paper has been quoted, but the House is being allowed the opportunity to hear only certain passages that the Secretary of State wishes to reveal.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am quite sure that the Secretary of State is an honourable man, as is every hon. Gentleman and hon. Lady in the House. If he is quoting from a state document, it will have been tabled. If he is not, he has every right to quote from it.
Mr. Dalyell : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Do you intend to protect the House against what has become an unworthy rant? Can we be told why, if all that the Secretary of State said is true, three men were prosecuted? If all the documents were debated by Ministers, why were those three Matrix Churchill directors prosecuted?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : The House knows that the Chair is not responsible for the quality of speeches.
Mr. Bob Dunn (Dartford) : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In view of what my right hon. Friend has said, would it be in order for the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) to withdraw his earlier statement?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : That is not a matter for the Chair.
Mr. Heseltine : The hon. Member for Livingston was not content simply with selective quotations. Grubbing around in the undergrowth, he though that he had hit on another winner. He discovered that a telegram had been sent from the Foreign Office, signed "Howe", to our embassy in Tokyo seeking information about an aspect of the Matrix Churchill affair. Even that argument exploded in his hands. The telegram never went to Lord Howe's office. All telegrams from the Foreign Office go out in the Foreign Secretary's name, no matter who originates them. If it is love and kisses from the cleaning lady in London to the third secretary in Moscow on his birthday, the happy message will go out in the name of the Foreign Secretary.
Mr. Benn : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Is it another point of order?
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Mr. Benn : It is the same point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Nothing in my previous point of order reflected on the honour of the Secretary of State or any other Minister. I am asking you to apply the rules of "Erskine May". Ambassadorial telegrams are all state documents. We cannot discuss this matter if some people have access to documents. We have to protect the House, not one user.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I have given a clear ruling-- [Interruption.] Order. How can I give a ruling if hon. Members interrupt me? It is clear that, if a state document is quoted directly, it must be tabled. That is the ruling, and I expect all hon. Members to abide by it.
Mr. Heseltine : It is extraordinary that the whole debate is based upon quotations that the hon. Member for Livingston has taken from documents released to the court by the Government, yet not a word of protest is heard from Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen about their ability to quote selectively from those documents. All that I am doing, without quoting from those documents, is to set the record in a full context. That is the inevitable consequence of a debate that has been originated by the Opposition, not the Government. Many hundreds of telegrams a day, from every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Foreign Office building, are sent out in the name of the Foreign Secretary. All that the debate reveals is that Labour has been out of office for a very long time. It no longer knows how government works, so Labour Members make it up and trust to luck. The hon. Gentleman got it wrong. The headlines faded--the six-inch banner on the front page subsided to an inside column headed, "Cook fails to convince"-- [Interruption.] Oh yes, it was there.
The hon. Gentleman held about three press conferences, with more disclosures, and even the journalists began to lose faith in him. Indeed, even better than that, the hon. Gentleman is now beginning to realise that he has made a mess of it. I heard him on the radio on Saturday morning. I understand that he is about to carpet some hapless research assistant. He said :
"I could not have done it all myself. My assistant worked all night."
That was the basis of three weeks of allegations by the hon. Gentleman. It is a terrible warning to the research assistant about where the blame will lie.
I want to deal with the suggestion that my right hon. Friends and I sought to cover up the evidence available to us in our Departments. The suggestion, which has been widely reported in the national press, is that we were prepared to allow innocent men to be convicted rather than expose the Government to the risk of criticism. If for no other reason, the Scott inquiry is essential to establish the facts. My three colleagues and I were each approached with a request to sign a public interest immunity certificate. It was not a collective decision ; we were each signing in respect of papers within our own Departments. It was for each of us to read the papers in our Departments and to satisfy ourselves that they came within the categories either of security or of advice to Ministers--and if we were so satisfied, we had to sign.
Lord Justice Scott will satisfy himself on whether we acted properly. He will consider what we said and did and he will have before him the advice that we have received from the Attorney-General, which my right hon. and learned Friend explained to the House on 10 November. I
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shall add only one thing--that I want to express my gratitude to Mr. James Hunt QC, who appeared for the defence in the Matrix Churchill trial. In a letter to The Times on 13 November--Ms. Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) : He is nota QC.
Mr. Heseltine : Mr. Hunt is a QC. It is intolerable that the Opposition should seek to denigrate those who are responsible for the conduct of justice.
I shall quote from the letter written by the QC who appeared for the defence in the Matrix Churchill case. The letter says : "We feel bound to state that much of the reporting elsewhere in the media of the government documents issued has caused us to think we must have been present in an altogether different court.
The plain fact of the matter is that counsel for the Crown said at the outset, when placing the public interest immunity certificates before the court, that the question of disclosure was a matter for the trial judge and not for the Ministers concerned. Public interest immunity cannot be waived by either the prosecution or the Ministers. It was for the judge to decide whether the interests of justice in ensuring a fair trial for the defendants outweighed those considerations of public interests referred to in the certificates. There was no question of anyone attempting to suppress evidence. In the event, the judge decided in favour of disclosure and the documents were immediately produced. Although views may differ as to the importance of the documents, the approach of counsel for the Crown to the question of public interest immunity was entirely in accordance with our understanding of the decided cases."
I could not have put the matter more clearly. That is the position as I understood it. I would not have acted in the way that I did unless I had been absolutely satisfied that the judge would make available those documents or those parts of a document which he considered necessary for the proper course of justice. Therefore, I totally and absolutely reject the accusations of the hon. Member for Livingston.
Mr. Robin Cook : I repeat the question that I asked in my speech. If Judge Smedley had accepted the advice in the certificates that disclosure would be contrary to the public interest and the documents had not been revealed, and if the three executives had been convicted, does the President of the Board of Trade believe that in those circumstances justice would have been done?
Mr. Heseltine : That is simply another grave accusation about the judge in charge of the trial. The judge was in a position to exercise a judgment. I knew that he would exercise that judgment, because I had established beyond question that he would consider the documents. If the judge had considered the documents necessary for the conduct of justice, he would have released them. If I must rely on the Attorney-General or the hon. Member for Livingston, it is the simplest decision that I have ever had to make in my life.
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) : I have read my right hon. Friend's certificate. I think that it is an artful and true document. If it was a duty, why was the duty not invoked in the Ponting case when the prosecution made available, without Crown immunity or the claim for Crown immunity, the Crown jewels?
Mr. Heseltine : It is about eight years since I stood here to deal with the Ponting case. If I remember correctly, I agreed at that time to make available the documents known as the Crown jewels to a Select Committee of the
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House. I did that so that the House could have an opportunity through its Select Committee to consider deeply sensitive, secure information. Having done that, I was grateful that the Select Committee supported the Government's judgment at the time. The House was as fully briefed as possible, compatible with the immensely secure information that those documents contained.Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East) : As the Secretary of State is telling the House about the state of his knowledge, will he tell us whether he knew when he signed the certificate that the three accused had been acting in accordance with Government policy, and that one of them had been giving valuable information to the security services?
Mr. Heseltine : The certificate that I was asked to sign did not ask me to become involved in investigating or even understanding the nature of the prosecution. However, it asked me to look at documents in my Department and determine the technical issue of whether they were within one of two categories. That is the issue which I was asked to determine. That is the nature of the certificate, and I signed it on that understanding.
Mr. Campbell : It is a simple question, yes or no. Did the right hon. Gentleman know the information that I put to him earlier?
Mr. Heseltine : It is clear from what I said that I was not involved, and I was not expected to be involved, in the conduct of the trial. I had not sought to involve myself in the issues that the trial raised. In no way was that my responsibility.
We are dealing simply with whether Ministers should have signed the public interest immunity certificates. I was advised that it was my duty to sign them, and I did so on that basis.
Mr. Neil Kinnock (Islwyn) : I shall ask the Secretary of State two questions, one of which he has already been asked but to which he has not comprehensively responded. Did he know--yes or no--that the people who were to go on trial and who were the subjects of information contained in the certificates had been of assistance to the Government? When he signed the certificates, was he aware that they were relevant to criminal proceedings that would affect the liberty of the subjects?
Mr. Heseltine : Of course I was aware of the significance of the trial and the charges upon which the outcome of the trial depended. That is why, as Lord Justice Scott will want to establish, I asked the questions and discussed the matter in the way that I did. It is essential that Lord Justice Scott looks at the matters. It is the only way in which the allegations made--I believe irresponsibly--by the Opposition can be adequately dealt with. What I knew, what I should have known, the questions that I asked and the questions that I should have asked are matters which will be properly examined. I repeat what I said earlier : I had to decide whether the legal position gave me any discretion in signing the documents. If counsel acting for the defence believed that Ministers had no discretion, why should I be persuaded that Opposition Members had a greater insight into
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ministerial duties than counsel who were responsible for defending the very people that Opposition Members were concerned about?Mr. Kinnock : I recognise that, in responding to a question with another question, the Secretary of State is engaging in a fair parliamentary debating technique. However, he still has not answered two basic questions. I shall concentrate on the first one. When the right hon. Gentleman signed the certificate, did he know that the people to which the material related had been of assistance to the Government in collecting intelligence information which was of use to the Government?
Mr. Heseltine : The right hon. Gentlleman must be aware that I, as Secretary of State, am not in a position to involve myself in prosecuting proceedures. That is not a ministerial responsibility. The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that the moment one is drawn into discussions on that subject, a vast range of sub-questions arise which can be dealt with only by a proper and full inquiry. The charge against Ministers is that they tried to conceal the facts from the court. I did not try to conceal the facts from the court. That is the responsibility that I bear. I have no doubt whatever that the matter will be fully
Mr. Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry, North-West) : Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Heseltine : No, I will not give way. I have given way several times.
I have no doubt whatever that the matter will be explored exhaustively by Lord Justice Scott's inquiry, and properly so. The issue that the House is invited to examine is whether Ministers properly signed the certificates. On the legal advice to us, there was no discretion.
Mr. Kinnock : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is clearly important that the House should never be misled. It would be dreadful, would it not, if a right hon. or hon. Member were accused of seeking to mislead ? It is important that we understand that no charge has been levelled against the President of the Board of Trade. A simple question was asked. The right hon. Gentleman cannot be dragged into anything if the honest answer is the simple one--no.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The right hon. Gentleman was formerly the Leader of the Opposition, and knows that that matter is not for the Chair.
Mr. Heseltine : In the event, as the House knows, the papers themselves were to play no part in the prosecuting counsel's decision to recommend to his clients, the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, that the trial should be ended. The evidence of Alan Clark under cross-examination proved the critical point and is now the subject of investigation.
The House will want to be satisfied about the nature of the inquiry to be undertaken by Lord Justice Scott. It has been kept fully informed. Lord Justice Scott has wide terms of reference. His inquiry is not restricted to the Matrix Churchill affair but can cover exports over the whole period from 1984 to 1990. He will consider the PII issue and the decisions taken in relation to prosecution.
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Ministers will be required to give evidence and officials have been instructed to co-operate. All Government papers sought by Lord Justice Scott will be provided to him. He alone will determine which matters he considers relevant and he will be able to cover them all in his inquiry. Lord Justice Scott will have unfettered discretion as to what to publish and whether, or what parts of, his inquiry will be in public.Lord Justice Scott knows that if he feels unable to obtain satisfactory attendance or answers, he is free to ask the Government to convert the inquiry into a 1921 Act inquiry. If he asks, the Government will agree to his request. I do not believe that the Government could give more comprehensive reassurance than I have just repeated.
I was dismayed to read in The Independent this morning an article on page one that carried the headline,
"Labour raises doubt over Iraq arms export inquiry."
I will quote the second and third paragraphs of that report : "Robin Cook, Labour's spokesman on trade and industry, also raised doubts about the independence of the Scott inquiry, saying : What we see at the end of the day will depend on negotiations with Lord Justice Scott and the Government The inquiry is staffed by the same Treasury solicitors that advised those government ministers not to disclose documents in the Matrix Churchill case.'"
Once again, the hon. Member for Livingston makes two extremely serious allegations. The first is that Lord Justice Scott could have his independence constrained by negotiations with the Government. I utterly refute that charge. I urge the hon. Gentleman to confirm my understanding of Lord Justice Scott's independence. Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that Lord Justice Scott would allow his independence to be constrained by Government?
Mr. Robin Cook : A moment ago, the President of the Board of Trade said that it was open to Lord Justice Scott to come back and to reconstitute the inquiry as a tribunal of inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman is well aware that, if Lord Justice Scott did so, the proceedings would take place in public, the evidence would be on the record, and everyone would know what went on in private. If the right hon. Gentleman believes that there may be a case for coming back in that way and for leaving Lord Justice Scott to request that, why do the Government not agree now to allow the inquiry to take place in public--and prove to the whole world that it is taking place in public and is independent, and that the evidence is fully reported? If the inquiry were so set up, would the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that it would not be staffed by the same Treasury solicitors that advised his Government?
Mr. Heseltine : It took the hon. Gentleman a long time to think of that answer and a long time to give it--the problem is that it answered a question that I did not ask. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that Lord Justice Scott would allow his independence to be compromised by negotiations with the Government? That is the issue. Mr. Cook indicated dissent.
Mr. Heseltine : The hon. Gentleman, from a sedentary position, shakes his head. Why does he do so when in The Independent this morning he was quoted as saying that Lord Justice Scott would allow his independence to be compromised by negotations with the Government?
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That is a scandalous performance by a leading member of the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman has smeared--he has more than smeared--a judge of the High Court, and he does not have the guts to admit it. He does not have the guts to withdraw it. I hope that that point will not be lost on Lord Justice Scott.
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