House of Commons Hansard Debates for 23 Nov 1992

Mr. Cook : The right hon. Gentleman just used the word "guts". If the right hon. Gentleman has the courage, and if the Government believe that they have nothing to hide and that they they can face the future, why does not the right hon. Gentleman accept the challenge that I posed a moment ago, and make the inquiry a tribunal of inquiry so that it will take place in public and we can see what the Government have to hide?

Mr. Heseltine : Just by asking a second question, the hon. Gentleman does not hide the fact that he could not answer the first. Let us make a little progress. The allegation has been made that "the inquiry is staffed by the same Treasury solicitors that advised ministers not to disclose documents in the Matrix Churchill case."

The solicitor who will assist Lord Justice Scott was selected precisely because he had no previous involvement in the affair. Lord Justice Scott is entirely satisfied with that arrangement. The hon. Member for Livingston smears Lord Justice Scott and smears the Treasury solicitor, and only attempts to hide his embarrassment by asking quite different questions. The hon. Gentleman lowers the already low esteem of his conduct in the affair.

I want to make one final point, which has been doubly reinforced by the conduct of the hon. Member for Livingston this afternoon. No one disputes the seriousness of charges being investigated. No one should doubt the Government's immediate response in setting up an inquiry under Lord Justice Scott, yet a political dimension has clouded the atmosphere in which the affair has been conducted over the past few weeks.

A nauseating hypocrisy has flavoured the remarks and the behaviour of Labour Members. They cry, "Misleading the House." That from a party which secretly updated Britain's nuclear deterrent at a cost, in today's money terms, of £22.5 billion by adding the Chevaline programme to our Polaris submarines. Why did Labour do that? It was because an inner group of senior Labour Cabinet Ministers could not even trust their Cabinet colleagues, let alone the parliamentary Labour party.

Labour Members allege that we endangered British service men. I cannot remember--

Mr. Ron Leighton (Newham, North-East) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you ask the right hon. Gentleman to speak a little louder? I cannot hear him.-- [Laughter.]

Mr. Heseltine : No matter how loudly I speak, a large number of Opposition Members will never hear or understand a word that I say. Labour's second nauseating act of hypocrisy is its suggestion that the Government in some way set about endangering British service men. I do not remember mass pickets protesting at the sale of British weapons to the Argentines when Labour was in power. Then, Argentina was governed by a military Government whose civil rights reputation did not actually shine across the enlightened

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world. Of course that Labour Government did not know about the risks of a Falklands war. No one knew--just as no one knew that Iraq would invade Kuwait.

No one is going to take lectures from the hon. Member for Livingston--who, throughout his political career, has been enrolled under the battle honours of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and whose political career has been devoted to undermining the defence interests of our country. Conservative Members want an independent inquiry.

Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda) : Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. It is clear that the Secretary of State will not give way. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. Mr. Rogers rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker : I hope that the hon. Gentleman is about to bowl me a genuine point of order.

Mr. Rogers : I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The truth is that I could not hear the right hon. Gentleman

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am grateful. That is enough.

Mr. Heseltine : It is apparent that there is a need for Lord Justice Scott to get on with the inquiry. That is the only way in which the matter will be seriously investigated to the satisfaction of the House and a wider public.

Mr. Peter Hain (Neath) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Documents contained in appendix 8 of the Bingham report, relating to the BCCI inquiry, also bear on Lord Justice Scott's inquiry. Are they state papers, and are MI5 or MI6 intelligence papers relating to the case also state documents?

Mr. Deputy Speaker : I certainly cannot advise on that.

Mr. Heseltine : The case for an independent inquiry under Lord Justice Scott has been proved beyond peradventure by the behaviour of Opposition Members. Conservative Members want an independent inquiry to be carried out by a distinguished judge, with all the evidence, and that is what our amendment seeks. We will vote against the Labour motion, which prejudges the issues, apportions blame and affronts the independence with which Lord Justice Scott has been entrusted. 6.11 pm

Sir David Steel (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) : I congratulate the President of the Board of Trade on a very good speech to the Conservative party conference. The problem is that this House is not the Conservative party conference, and I suspect that Opposition Members are not the only people to resent being treated as though it were. There are serious issues to be addressed, relating to the conduct of Government ; the motion attempts to address them, but a number of them were not addressed by the right hon. Gentleman. I shall begin by asking some questions about the nature of the inquiry, and I intend to quote from documents, but I shall not name any civil servant in relation to those

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documents because I am old fashioned enough to believe in ministerial responsibility. Ministers will know the documents from which I intend to quote.

My first point concerns the nature of the inquiry. At the time of the internal Government inquiry into the Westland Affair--in which the President of the Board of Trade had more than a passing interest--I complained to the then Prime Minister that, had she been living in the real world, she would have been charged with wasting police time. I am now concerned that we should not waste Lord Justice Scott's time. I believe that the terms of reference that he has been given are drawn too narrowly. In my view, it is not a question of inviting Lord Justice Scott to report on

"whether the relevant Departments, Agencies, and responsible Ministers operated in accordance with the policies of Her Majesty's Government."

I am prepared to accept for the sake of argument that they may well have done that, in relation to the terms of reference. The question is : why was an overt policy relating to supplies to Iraq declared to the House and the public while a covert policy was pursued by Ministers over quite a long period?

A letter written today by the Prime Minister to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Liberal Democrats referred to the reasons for holding an inquiry of this kind, rather than a tribunal. According to the Prime Minister, a tribunal would have

"suppressed all questions in the meantime".

That brings me to my first question. I know that the Secretary of State for Defence is to reply to the debate, and that the matters that I intend to raise are not strictly within his departmental responsibility, but I hope that we shall receive answers none the less.

My first question relates to the current police inquiries about the conduct of Mr. Alan Clark. Like the Secretary of State for Defence, I am just a humble graduate in Scots law and I do not entirely follow English legal proceedings, but the Attorney-General will correct me if I am wrong. Am I right in believing that the current police inquiries into the conflict between the written and oral evidence of Mr. Alan Clark are pretty routine and have nothing to do with Ministers? Am I also right in believing that, if a decision were made to prosecute Mr. Clark because of that conflict, the prosecution could be stopped by the Attorney-Gerneral? If I am right, I believe that the Attorney-General should stop the prosecution. Not only would prosecuting Mr. Clark make him a scapegoat, as the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) suggested earlier, but it would also do exactly what the Prime Minister said that a tribunal hearing would do--that is, render the whole matter sub judice--and thus hamper Lord Justice Scott's inquiry.

The House wants the truth, not the prosecution of a former Minister. The Government appeared to be fairly easy in their mind about whether business men would go to gaol, and they will not lose any sleep over whether Mr. Alan Clark resides in one of the more salubrious open prisons. That, however, is not the issue. The question is whether Mr. Alan Clark will be available to give evidence to the inquiry, and whether the inquiry will get at the truth. That brings me to my second question about the inquiry and the terms of reference. There is an extraordinary provision allowing Lord Justice Scott, if need be, to come back and ask for more powerful terms. I do not understand why it should be anticipated that Lord

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Justice Scott will be obstructed in any way ; however, I wish to raise a specific point, which I have raised before but to which I have so far received no answer.

Do the instructions given by the Prime Minister to Ministers and civil servants to co-operate with the inquiry apply to former Ministers? Do they apply to Mr. Alan Clark himself, to Lord Ridley, to Lord Trefgarne, to the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor)--who had a walk-on part in the proceedings--and, indeed, to Lady Thatcher?

That last question is particularly important. Information in the documents made available to the court makes it clear that in two ministerial meetings --in November 1988 and in July 1990--what Ministers were discussing required the Prime Minister's personal approval. I do not see how the inquiry can proceed effectively without the active participation of Lady Thatcher. I assume that, before drawing up the guidelines the Prime Minister received an assurance that she would co-operate ; in any event, I think that the House should know about it.

My third question relates to something mentioned by the President of the Board of Trade : the work of the United Nations Verification Commission for Iraq. Two days ago, in New York, I met Ambassador Ekeus, the chairman of the commission. The commission has done some remarkably effective work, and has been able to compile a list of all the supplies that went to the Saddam Hessein regime--not just from this country, but from others--before the invasion of Kuwait. The list contains some equipment from this country for which Ministers could not possibly be held responsible, because it did not go directly to munitions factories or other places that have been mentioned in newspapers. It went under the guise of hospital contracts, schools contracts and so forth. Nevertheless, the list is now in the Government's hands. I well understand why it must remain secret : it is essential to the commission's work that it can compare what it knows from its own findings with what the present Iraqi regime is willing to own up to. I want to know whether the Government will make the list available to Lord Justice Scott. That is a specific question requiring a specific answer. Unless Lord Justice Scott can see the details of all the supplies sent by this country and others, I do not see how he can carry out his task properly. My fourth and last question on the terms of reference is this. I interrupted the President of the Board of Trade on this subject, and I hope that we were not talking at cross purposes. So far as I can make out, the guidelines were changed twice--or, at any rate, preparations were being made to change them on the second occasion. I was referring to the earlier occasion when the memorandum on guidelines was changed in December 1988-January 1989. The documents reveal that the then Minister of State, Foreign Office--the right hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave)--made it quite clear to his fellow Ministers in October 1989 that he was willing to make the change public and that he had been willing to make the change public at the time the change was made. The House is entitled to know why it was not told of the slackening of the guidelines and why the House was misled in the opposite direction.

As we all know, the guidelines were announced in 1985. They were changed in December 1988. Yet the House was told in December 1990 by the then Minister for Trade--the right hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury), who is

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in his place now--the following. The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) quoted only part of what he said ; I shall give the quotation in full. This was in 1990, after the guidelines had been relaxed. In answer to Mr. Beaumont-Dark, then Member of Parliament for Birmingham, Selly Oak, the right hon. Gentleman said :

"The guidelines to which the hon. Member referred are clear. They were set out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) on 29 October 1985, and since then they have been scrupulously and carefully followed in the issuing of licences. No other country has such a careful method for scrutinising applications for export licences and for controlling exports." Later in the same exchanges in the House, the right hon. Member for Hove said :

"I assure him that we continually review our procedures for controlling defence exports. The procedures are applied most scrupulously and carefully. As he will see from recent events, we have further reviewed and improved those procedures, and we are open to further suggestions about anything that can be done to make them even better than they are."--[ Official Report, 3 December 1990 ; Vol. 182, c. 29-35.]

The answers, I quote are important, because they relate to specific allegations concerning Matrix Churchill at a time when Customs and Excise had already started proceedings against the company and its directors. They amount to the Government's official response to Matrix Churchill and make it clear that the 1985 guidelines were upheld--and even, it was hinted to the House, strengthened--when in fact the reverse was the case.

Dr. Keith Hampson (Leeds, North-West) : It is only fair to refer to the whole record. I have before me what officials said to the Select Committee--that in December that year they did indeed substantially tighten the operational procedures whereby they scrutinised applications, at which point certain companies, including Sheffield Forgemasters objected to the new, tighter procedures. The officials also told the Committee that the guidelines were changed in December 1988. That was said to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) who is sitting on the right hon. Gentleman's left.

Sir David Steel : Yes, that may have been correct in the Committee's proceedings. I accept that the procedures were being tightened up. What I am complaining about is that, even as late as 1990, Ministers were referring on the Floor of the House to the original 1985 guidelines. We were never told openly here what the changes were until recent events. That is the burden of my complaint.

The Prime Minister's answer to me has been widely quoted in the press, but not in its entirety. The House should listen again to this exchange. In January 1991 I asked the present Prime Minister this question :

"After the Gulf war, bearing in mind what was done after the Falklands war, will the Prime Minister consider setting up a high-level inquiry into the acquisition by Iraq of British arms and technology, including some from private companies, quangos and Government Departments, so that lessons may be learnt, and so that never again will our forces be faced with an enemy armed partly by ourselves?"

This was the Prime Minister's reply :

"There is a considerable degree of sensitivity about the supply of arms and equipment. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, for some considerable time we have not supplied arms to Iraq for precisely that reason."--[ Official Report,

31 January 1991 ; Vol. 202, c. 1102.]

There is an elision, is there not, between "arms" and "arms and equipment" or "arms and technology"? Again the impression was being given at the highest level to the

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House that nothing of the kind had been going on for some time in relation to Iraq. The House was, I believe, consistently misled at every level by the Government.

There was an interdepartmental memorandum by a civil servant in October 1989 in preparation for one of the ministerial meetings. It was a memorandum to the Minister of State, Foreign Office, and it referred to the efforts being made by Alan Clark and Lord Trefgarne. It says :

"Their letters are full of special pleading (Lord Trefgarne's astonishing claim that Matrix Churchill is somehow separate from Iraqi arms procurement activities/Learfan can be exploded by showing him the nice diagram in the FT of

21 September which demonstrates the organic connection !) and the letter from Matrix has all the hallmarks of having been prompted by and drafted in co-operation with the DTI."

That is a very serious allegation for one Department to make of another.

Another memorandum, this time from the Ministry of Defence in January 1988, argued :

"We have obtained intelligence that the lathes are to go to set up munitions factories to produce missiles and shells in large quantities. Had this information been available at the time that the licence applications were considered, the MODWG would have advised the IDC that the military assessment was that the use of the lathes for this purpose would constitute a significant enhancement in Iraq's capability to prolong the confict with Iran."

That, surely is an admission that equipment was being supplied which enhanced the capability and was therefore presumably in breach of the guidelines, wittingly or unwittingly.

Another memorandum from the Foreign Office--again I shall not name names-- says :

"It is likely that had we known from the outset that the machine tools would be used to manufacture munitions we would have recommended that licences be refused. At present, the Iraqis import most of their shells from the Soviet Union. The Iraqi aim is to replace this supply with local manufacture. It is therefore arguable that Iraqi capability will not be significantly enhanced." That gives the game away. If one argues that, because Iraq intends to manufacture its own shells with equipment that we supply, it is therefore merely replacing Russian imports and its capability is not being enhanced, the guidelines are, of course, beautifully observed. That is why I believe that the terms of reference for the inquiry are nowhere near wide enough.

I intend no slur on Lord Justice Scott, who I understand to be a man of the highest integrity, but I do not understand how an inquiry into the Government's activities can be called genuinely independent when the terms of reference are laid down by the Government themselves. Why were the terms of reference not agreed with the Opposition parties? Had that been done, one would have had more confidence in the exercise in which we are engaged.

I turn from the inquiry itself to one of the other issues which ought to concern the House : the way in which information has been concealed from Parliament and from the public. My party and I, and other hon. Members, have long supported freedom of information legislation. I have not the slightest doubt that none of these activities would have gone on had we introduced the system which operates in the United States, under which the public can ask for papers after a certain amount of time has elapsed. I do not believe that these memoranda would have been flying

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around Whitehall if it had been known that, within five or 10 years, or whatever period the House decided was appropriate, they would be open to public scrutiny. They do not bear examination as they stand at the moment.

I do not want to weary the House with quotations, but I intend to quote briefly from four memoranda. One, dated January 1988, says : "If it becomes public knowledge that the tools are to be used to make munitions, deliveries would have to stop at once ... The companies should be urged to produce and ship as fast as they can." That was the advice that was given. Another memorandum states : "Meanwhile MTTA companies should maintain a low profile. Press or public attention would make it more difficult to permit fulfilment of contracts."

The then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Lord Ridley, has been quoted many times as talking of the dirty washing that would come out if the Customs and Excise case against Matrix Churchill were allowed to proceed. The final internal memorandum in 1988 stated : "There seems to be considerable merit in keeping as quiet as possible about this politically sensitive issue."

Merit for whom ?

The case for the defence put by the President of the Board of Trade rested on the basis that, if we had not made these sales, others would have done so, and that the sales were in the interests of employment. That ignores a number of issues, such as what was happening to the Kurds at the time. The then Foreign Secretary, now Lord Howe, told the House :

"We have certainly been appalled by the suffering inflicted as a result of the large-scale displacement of Kurds from their homes in Iraq. We have proclaimed the evidence of chemical warfare use as compelling but not conclusive. It is clear that Iraq has a case to answer, and we have been in the forefront of pressing the case in respect of these barbaric issues."-- [ Official Report, 30 November 1988 ; Vol. 142, c.687.]

We are now told by the President of the Board of Trade that pressing the case seemed to involve millions of pounds, worth of export credits and relaxing the guidelines. We must not forget why Ministers were reluctant to announce these changes or to let all this information come out. They knew what the public and parliamentary reaction would be to continuing supplies to Saddam Hussein's regime. The Kurds suffered then, and they are suffering now. It is clear that Iraq has succeeded in one of its principal aims--to establish a home-based munitions industry. As a result, it has been able to rebuild many of the tanks that were lost in the Gulf war, which are now surrounding the Kurdish safe havens for which the Prime Minister fought so hard months ago.

It is a very sorry tale, but unhappily it is not a new one. In a speech that I made towards the end of the Falklands war, I spoke of Ministers referring to the islanders as being under the heel of the fascist junta. I said :

"it should be remembered that we were happily selling arms to that same Fascist junta not long ago. Morever, the Exocet missile, which has been frequently been referred to as a fire and forget' weapon might also be referred to as an export and forget' weapon." [ Official Report, 13 May 1982 ; Vol. 23 c. 971.]

In Argentina, and now in Iraq, we sold equipment for arms that were used against our own forces. We should consider that in the context of the world -wide sale of arms, because, after the end of the cold war, the world is spending £450 billion a year on arms, and 75 per cent. of conventional arms sales go to the developing world. On the streets of Maputo, it is possible to buy an AK-47 for

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$2. Our troops in Bosnia cannot have helicopter cover because of the existence of shoulder-launched missiles which have seeped through into former Yugoslavia from American supplies to Afghan rebels. The world is awash with arms.

Unless it becomes a central part of our foreign and defence police to get international co-operation to stop the arms trade, and ourselves to stop export credit guarantees for the supply of arms and equipment, to close down the arms sales agencies, and to use the defence-related work force for more sensible purposes, there will continue to be tragedies such as the invasion of Kuwait.

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We are being invited to support the Government amendment, which welcomes the

"wide terms of reference which will enable Lord Justice Scott to examine all of the facts".

That implies that all the documents will be available to Lord Justice Scott. Many hon. Members are deeply worried that documents held by Departments or firms which may have been involved in this matter will be lost or removed.

I understand the rules on written parliamentary questions being referred to other Ministers, but I tabled question 329 to the Attorney-General asking whether he would take measures to "prevent the unauthorised removal, destruction of and tampering with all documents relating to the sale of arms and components to Iraq, held within Government Departments and elsewhere."

It was passed--abandoned I think--by the Attorney-General to the Prime Minister.

That raises an important issue of whether the Attorney-General has been advising the House as an impartial Law Officer or as a Conservative politician defending the Prime Minister's hide. We require reassurance, first, on whether documents held by Departments and elsewhere are secure, safe and being held independently for Lord Justice Scott and, secondly, on whether the Attorney-General has been advising the House as an independent Law Officer or as a Conservative politician.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : The accuracy or otherwise of the contents of an amendment is not a matter for the Chair. The switching of questions is not a matter for the Chair, and it cannot be responsible for the quality of answers.

6.36 pm

Dr. Keith Hampson (Leeds, North-West) : So much of today's debate, as with the press, has been taken out of context. The hype with which so- called disclosures have been released in the press and used by Opposition spokesmen is pretty close to disgraceful. I shall give a couple of examples. Four journalists wrote an exclusive in this Sunday's The Observer on the way in which the Iraqis tried to buy the Learfan factory. What surprising disclosure was that, when in September 1989 the same newspaper disclosed exactly the same story, written by Alan George? It has taken four reporters four years to rewrite the story, to which the only addition was a quotation by the ubiquitous hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook).

In The Engineer of 26 October 1989, Mr. George again pieces together the Iraqi jigsaw puzzle. The entire Iraqi

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network across Europe for arms procurement is itemised, such as the fact that Matrix Churchill had been bought by Iraqi intelligence. On the Nick Ross radio programme last week, that journalist said that he had to put this information in a magazine as widely read as The Engineer because he could not interest any of the major national newspapers-- The Observer, The Independent and The Guardian, which are now so fulsome in their condemnation--in the story.

Dates are scattered indiscriminately in newspaper stories--as they have been today. Most of the quotations that seem so damning are about official and ministerial meetings in 1989, 1990 and 1991, yet the war finished in October 1988. Of course, therefore, changes were made. Officials told the Select Committee on Trade and Industry that the third guideline was amended to take account of the ceasefire. Year in, year out, Opposition Members protest their concern about the decline in the manufacturing base in this country, so how can they say that Industry Ministers should take no interest in that?

Ms. Short : Two issues are at stake here : the first is whether the House has been misled ; the other is whether Britain helped to build the monstrous regime of Saddam Hussein, which oppressed the Iraqi people, invaded Kuwait and then triggered a war. The hon. Gentleman has not dealt with whether Britain helped to cause the war.

Dr. Hampson : No one could claim that we helped cause the war, although of course we helped indirectly to arm Hussein.

Trade and Industry Ministers have a responsibility to assist British industry. The Committee had the evidence ; companies were asking to be relieved of regulations and bureaucratic controls in what is, after all, an extraordinary market. In 1988, we sold £4 billion-worth of goods to markets in the middle east, importing only £1.3 billion from there. The middle east is a big market for everything, not just arms. In 1988, we sold Iraq goods worth £412 million and imported only £43 million- worth from Iraq. It is, as I say, big business. There was nothing to stop British companies selling goods to Iraq or Iran throughout the Iran-Iraq war. Throughout that time, there were trade fairs, to which British business men went. Ministers assisted them.

It might be argued that this was immoral, given the nature of the Iraqi regime. Some Opposition Members take that view of high principle--but Labour Governments never took it. No sensible person, I believe, would take that view. This country was seeking orders from around the world, against our major competitors, and many British manufacturing companies involved in those sales were facing great difficulty. In that context, the restrictions were severe, and after the ceasefire they were relaxed to help this country.,

Page XII of our report mentions, in the context of restrictions, "the consistent refusal to supply any lethal equipment to either side, subject to the consideration that we should attempt to fulfil existing contracts and obligations."

There is nothing there to say that we cannot sell arms to Iraq. So of course British suppliers could sell associated equipment, knobs for radar, and so on. Retrospectively, it is possible to point the finger and say that certain radar parts and tank spares were later turned against British soldiers, but that is hindsight with a vengeance. One

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cannot prophesy about this world. Existing contracts were maintained for perfectly understandable reasons, because companies needed the income and the jobs.

As the situation changed, so did the requirements. The key thing is that we never shipped or allowed to be shipped any "lethal" weaponary.

Mr. Richard Shepherd : I noticed my hon. Friend's caveat, but is he suggesting that the Customs and Excise prosecuted Matrix Churchill casually or frivolously?

Dr. Hampson : I will come to that point later--[ Hon. Members :-- "Answer it now."] I shall make my own speech in my own way. I readily concede that my hon. Friend has put his finger on a real point. Which lethal weapons really mattered in all this? The Learfan project, involving missile technology, was stopped. The supergun tubes were stopped right across Europe. In country after country, the customs managed to stop all those parts. The Hawks did not go, either. It was a different story elsewhere, though. I hope that the German ambassador and others will forgive me for saying that Germany, which initiated the use of gas in modern warfare, was the country that supplied Saddam Hussein with his lethal gas capacity--

Mr. Benn : The hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware that the Royal Air Force used gas against Iraqi tribesmen in the 1920s. If he tells the story in its proper context, he must therefore admit that Britain has a heavy responsibility in this respect.

Dr. Hampson : The right hon. Gentleman's history is a little faulty : the first world war predated the 1920s.

The Condor II missile was a joint Austrian-German project, with heavy Swiss involvement. It had nothing to do with this country. So other countries, notably the Germans, helped to produce the nastiest possible weaponry for Iraq. Opposition Members may disagree, but it is clear that we said that we would not deal in

non-conventional weaponry but would scrutinise other contracts, case by case, as long as they involved conventional weaponry. That was certainly not in breach of the guidelines after the ceasefire of August 1988.

Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton) : How would the hon. Gentleman define a power-control system used in missiles fired by an explosive charge? That sounds remarkably like a supergun to me. Is it conventional or non-conventional? The power control system came from a company in this country--in my constituency.

Dr. Hampson : I cannot answer that now, so I will not attempt to. The hon. Gentleman gave neither dates nor context. Opposition Members tend not to separate out the dates, and say whether incidents took place during the Iraqi war or after the ceasefire--

Mr. Kilfoyle rose--

Dr. Hampson : No, the hon. Gentleman has had a good go--

Hon. Members : Answer.

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