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issues. We now know that it was denied papers and evidence. Not surprisingly, the report was inconclusive. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) is trying to clarify the position, not just of the President but of the whole Government, on these issues.The House is facing new revelations in what are, by any test, extraordinary circumstances. That is why we believe that the BMARC affair should be the subject of a fully independent judicial inquiry, quite separate from the Scott inquiry. This new inquiry should have access to all documents and reports relevant to the BMARC affair. It should be headed by a judge; the person appointed should satisfy him or herself that the terms of reference are effectively drawn up. The issues raised in the BMARC affair go to the heart of the integrity and competence of government in our country. They should be independently and rigorously investigated.
Most of all, I am surprised that the President of the Board of Trade is not supporting our motion, which reflects the seriousness of the allegations and issues under debate--negligence, honesty, ministerial competence and integrity. The right hon. Gentleman certainly supported such an approach in the past, for in 1992 he had this to say about very similar accusations:
"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 . . . That is the only way in which the matter will be seriously investigated to the satisfaction of the House and a wider public . . . 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."--[ Official Report , 23 November 1992; Vol.214, c. 644 -53.]
The Conservatives' amendment does not seek that today--but then, as so often before, the right hon. Gentleman has shifted his ground. I nevertheless urge the House to support our motion tonight. 4.59 pm
The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I beg to move, to leaveout from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
"recognises the independence of the all-party Select Committee for Trade and Industry; welcomes the Government's assurance that if that Committee decides to examine the issues raised by the allegation that Singapore was used as a conduit for arms to Iran then it will co-operate fully; and recognises that as far as intelligence is concerned the Government will establish procedures with the Select Committee in the light of the Intelligence Services Act 1994.". In the ordinary course of events, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would begin with your characteristic title, but the whole House will want to recognise that in one material way your title has changed since I was last able to address you. I do not in any way seek to change your title, but the spirit of my congratulations is deep and heartfelt. It was not until the 27th minute of the speech of the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) that it appeared that there was a substantial difference between the thrust of what he was saying and the reasons why I made an oral statement a week ago. I accept at once that my statement arose directly from the fact that my hon. Friend the Under- Secretary of State and I had three written questions to address from the hon. Member for
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Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson). As a result of those questions, we did what the House would expect Ministers to do, which was to ask the basic questions and to seek the basic information so as to give a full answer to the House.My hon. Friend and I were not satisfied with the answers which were in front of us, and therefore asked for further information. As a result of the further information which was brought to our attention, it became apparent that there was a serious issue which Ministers in my Department first had to address. The right hon. Member for Copeland was correct when he said that there is a range of quotations, letters and parliamentary answers which needs to be revisited in the light of my statement.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington): May I take the President of the Board of Trade back a few sentences to clarify his position? He said that the first drafts which were placed before him were unsatisfactory. Does that mean that civil servants put drafts before him which they knew to be misleading?
Mr. Heseltine: No. I realise that the Labour party has not been in government for a long time. It is common--
Dr. John Cunningham: Patronising.
Mr. Heseltine: I am not patronising the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours): I am commenting on a merciful release for the country, which has been spared the phenomenon of a Labour Government.
It is common for Ministers to change the drafts of parliamentary answers. That is what Ministers are supposed to be in a position to do. The thrust of the questions of the right hon. Member for Copeland is that we should have done that earlier, as opposed to not doing it at all. Perhaps the Labour party will try to understand the normal workings of government. It is-- [Interruption.]
I never said that they were dishonest. I merely said that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and I were not satisfied that the responses answered the questions to our full satisfaction. Looking back, without the drafts in front of me--this is if I remember correctly--I thought that we could give fuller answers. I thought that, in giving fuller answers-- [Interruption.] There is no surprise in any of this. The House will appreciate that it is precisely for those reasons that I came before it with an oral statement.
Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda): Will the President of the Board of Trade give way on that point?
I am sure that the House will appreciate the enormity of the fact that the Labour party wants an independent judicial inquiry, which would take a long time. It is now trying to press an inquiry into a few moments across the Dispatch Boxes. I must be allowed to try to explain as fully as I reasonably can the circumstances and the decisions that the House will have to face this evening.
I have made it clear that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I asked for further details lying behind the original answers which were presented to us. As a result of further details, we became convinced that there was a need to bring to the House, in one form or another--I shall discuss that in a moment--fuller information, which would mean that earlier information would have to be modified, adjusted or even changed in all the circumstances.
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Mr. Rogers: Questions were tabled on issues similar to the one that we are discussing for over five years. Even last year, the particular issue had been brought to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman's Department. Why did he realise that the answers were unsatisfactory? Were abilities and perceptions peculiar, or did he know that there was a gap in the information? If so, how did he find out that there was a gap?Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman has asked a specific question. I happen to remember one of the reasons that influenced me at the time. With my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, I had asked for certain information in a form which had not been asked for before. It so happened that that was one of the questions that I had asked. The precise question tabled by the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North happened--I have no criticism of this-- to focus upon the particular inquiry that I had made within a matter of weeks, or days probably. He asked for information which I had just commissioned. The information was in my possession and that of the Department, and I could see no reason for not providing it. That information, however, revealed information which was new to the House and new to Ministers.
That was one of the reasons why I had information available to me which had not been available previously to Ministers. That is one of the reasons why my hon. Friend and I were in a position to give a different answer from that which Ministers had been able to give earlier.
Given that we had decided that there was a need to answer fully, fairly and frankly the questions which had been put to us, how did we deal with the issue? We could have done what would have been perfectly proper in the circumstances--I have been criticised for not following the route--and answered a written question with a written answer. That would have been a defensible response. I would not have been prepared to do it, but technically I could have used a device which all Governments have employed from time to time in different circumstances. I could have sought a bland form of words which would have skated over the issues. I did not try to do that.
If the House wants to discuss these matters seriously, it should be acknowledged that we all know that there are, and have been throughout time, answers to questions which do not reveal the whole story. I could have sought a form of words which would have had that effect. I was not prepared to do that.
The next option was a written answer. I knew perfectly well that a serious matter was before me. I thought that the House would wish to ask questions about it immediately it became aware of the issue. I knew that if the House did not want to, although I knew that it would, there would be an immediate inquiry by the media over 24 hours until, by means of a private notice question, I was back at the Dispatch Box the next day going through precisely what seemed to be the right thing to do, which was to make a statement in the first place. That was the precise position that we decided to adopt.
Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
That led to the next inevitable question--
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Mr. Wilson rose --Mr. Heseltine: I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Wilson: I am obviously grateful that my questions brought the right hon. Gentleman to the House. We shall discuss the problems in the wider context of what he says later. It is interesting that the right hon. Gentleman has revealed that he had already set parallel inquiries in train. What prompted him to do so?
Mr. Heseltine: There was a range of other questions, and I had been looking at them. The House must realise that it was not an isolated event. There was a series of questions, and I was looking at answers to them. We had been able to answer some of them quickly. We could not answer the right hon. Gentleman's questions quickly, as we did not have the information. It took us some six weeks, if I remember correctly. In the course of answering other questions, I undoubtedly would have pursued lines of inquiry, which, when the precise question came from the right hon. Gentleman, would have been relevant to it.
Dr. John Cunningham: I am grateful to the President for giving way again. He just told the House, Sir Geoffrey, and I take this opportunity to congratulate you-- [Interruption.] I say that, because Sir Geoffrey was not in the Chair when I began my speech. The President just told the House that he could not answer the questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson). Why, then, over a number of years, did his Ministerial colleagues go on giving answers to similar questions with such apparent authority and ease?
Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Gentleman will understand that the evidence available to my ministerial colleagues in the answers that they gave had appeared satisfactory. On the evidence that was available to them at the time, the answers appeared to be accurate. It was because of the precise investigations that we had begun, as I have explained to the House, that we became aware that there was cause for concern. That is why I took time to answer the questions, and, when I had the answers, came to the House with a full explanation, as I believed it to be then, and still do, in a way in which I thought appropriate.
Mr. Rogers rose --
Mr. Heseltine: No. I am not giving way. I am trying to take the House through difficult issues. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. The President of the Board of Trade has been asked questions, and he has a right to be able to answer them without interference.
Mr. Heseltine: The next question which, inevitably would have been asked, would have been: "Given that the President of the Board of Trade has answered a question in a way which changes evidence before the House, in the form of answers, should there be an inquiry?" It was evident that that question would be asked, and I felt therefore that, with my ministerial colleagues, we should address it. Therefore, far from covering up, my statement categorically suggested that, if the Select Committee on Trade and Industry wished to conduct an inquiry, we would give it the fullest possible co-operation.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the President of the Board of Trade give way?
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That seemed to me an absolutely clear indication that the Government recognised that this was a proper subject for an independent inquiry. There was no issue between myself and the right hon. Gentleman on this matter.Dr. John Cunningham: The difference between us is that we are calling, as the right hon. Gentleman did in the question of arms to Iraq, for an independent judicial inquiry. To revert to the right hon. Gentleman's course of argument, does he not think it a remarkable coincidence that, over five years, in the face of sustained questioning, every one of his Cabinet and ministerial colleagues had come to the same conclusion: there were no questions to answer in this matter? What was so remarkably different about the evidence and information available to him?
Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Gentleman simply does not seem to have grasped the whole significance of the debate: to answer these questions, we have suggested an independent inquiry. That was what I said a week ago. The only issue that the right hon. Gentleman should have addressed in his speech, and which he hardly mentioned, was not the substance of the debate but the means of pursuing an independent inquiry. That is the only difference between us.
Mr. Campbell-Savours rose --
Mr. Rogers rose --
Mr. Heseltine: The two hon. Members have had a fair crack of the whip-- [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The President of the Board of Trade has made it very clear that he is not giving way.
Mr. Heseltine: The issue is not whether there should be an inquiry but the form of the inquiry.
The right hon. Gentleman has tried to suggest that I blamed officials. I did not blame officials. There is nothing at all in the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend and myself to restrict the inquiry to civil servants. There was nothing in my statement that said that civil servants got it wrong. I came to the House. I am answerable. I provided the answers to the questions.
It is because the right hon. Gentleman, throughout the entire matter, has been trying to find a way of putting the blame on Ministers before there has been any sort of inquiry that I reject his allegations. I did not blame officials. With the agreement of my colleagues, I said that I thought that there should be an inquiry into these matters.
The right hon. Gentleman suggested that this was all about a cover-up exercise, that, by suggesting a Select Committee rather than a judicial inquiry, we were somehow trying to get around the matter via the back door. The whole House is fully aware that the Labour party, which, to quote words that I jotted down peradventure, is interested in more responsible openness, is currently conducting eight inquiries into the practices of Labour local authorities: Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester, Nottingham, Paisley, South Tyneside, Tower Hamlets, Bradford--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The President of the Board of Trade is straying a little. The debate is not about local authorities. [Interruption.] Order. The Chair will decide.
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Mr. Heseltine: The Chair will indeed decide, but the House, in witnessing the decision, will not lose sight of the fact that all those eight inquiries are being conducted in private-- [Interruption.]Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must now settle down. The Opposition spokesman was given a reasonable hearing, and the President of the Board of Trade must have the same.
Mr. Heseltine: I was settling down, but apparently without any cause, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because you were not on your feet. If one is to have a Select Committee inquiry, it is entirely a matter for the Select Committee to decide whether it should make such a decision.
Mr. Barry Porter (Wirral, South): Does my right hon. Friend agree with the implication in the right hon. Gentleman's speech: that the Trade and Industry Select Committee, which is chaired very ably by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), first, is not capable, secondly, would not be independent, and thirdly, would not be objective? If that was the implication, it is quite wrong. Provided that the Committee has all the information, which perhaps we did not have on the Iraq investigation, it seems to be an entirely appropriate way, but I disapprove strongly of the suggestions made by the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Heseltine: I will now be able to abbreviate my speech, because of the excellent intervention of my hon. Friend. I was going to come to the very point that he has so eloquently made.
The issue that arises once one has decided that there is a case for an inquiry--there is no difference between the two sides of the House on this matter--is what the inquiry should investigate. Again, it is entirely a matter for the Select Committee to determine, within the discretions that it has and the motions that we are discussing, how it should go about its task.
The right hon. Gentleman has spelt out clearly that he wants a full judicial inquiry into the matter. He made the point that I was in favour of it, and suggested it over Iraq, but he does not seem to have appreciated that any such inquiry that started from scratch with a clean sheet of paper would have to examine the licensing and intelligence dissemination arrangements, and that it would have to look at a range of other issues, but all from a starting point where it was not part of any existing inquiry.
As the whole House is aware, Sir Richard Scott has exhaustively examined the licensing arrangements in my Department as they apply to Iraq. No one is trying to suggest--no one could suggest--that things were done in a way that one would want to defend today; but what on earth is the point of setting up another judicial independent inquiry to go over all that ground all over again? We broadly know the facts.
A similar argument applies to the dissemination of intelligence. Those matters--again, in the context of Iraq--have been examined, and are being examined, by Sir Richard, whose conclusion we do not yet know. I do not think that a case can be made for the need to start from the very beginning, discounting all the work that has been done over nearly three years.
Mr. George Walden (Buckingham): It strikes me as both insulting and absurd of the right hon. Member for
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Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) to accuse Ministers of covert connivance in the supply of weapons to revolutionary Iran. On the other hand, does my right hon. Friend agree that a question does arise about British defence exports as a whole? I suspect that the issues involved in the Pergau dam affair, the Scott inquiry and the little problems that we are having here today spring not from ministerial malfeasance of any kind, but from the fact that this country has become a little too dependent on arms exports.When the Select Committee has completed its present job, perhaps it could look into the whole question of our over-reliance on arms exports, the opportunity cost in terms of research, technology and manpower and the long -term effect on the country--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Long interventions of that nature do not help in short debates.
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend has raised an important point, but I consider his approach ill conceived. The research and national resources that go into the production of defence equipment are not there to sell arms overseas; they are there to equip our armed forces with the equipment that they consider necessary to the performance of their job. That is what the defence budget is designed to achieve. Once our military planners and equipment manufacturers have achieved it to the best of their ability, we must ask ourselves whether we should take advantage of the information, professionalism and quality of equipment available to us by selling overseas, under the regulations and regimes that we have put in place. I can find no argument that suggests that, if Britain has the equipment and the right relationship with the country concerned, we should stand back and allow the French, rather than our own people, to make the sales and create the jobs.
Sir Timothy Sainsbury: In emphasising the advantages of building on a corpus of knowledge that is already there rather than starting with a blank sheet, does my right hon. Friend bear in mind--I suspect that he does --that the Select Committee has already examined, exhaustively and rather effectively, the very licensing arrangements to which he has referred? It did so in 1992.
Mr. Heseltine: My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that.
The option of a new judicial inquiry of the sort that the right hon. Member for Copeland wants has serious disadvantages. First, it would repeat a considerable amount of the work on matters that Sir Richard Scott has already explored exhaustively and is continuing to explore, and would take the same amount of time.
Dr. John Cunningham: The President is making much of this point. The Select Committee on Trade and Industry, however, will not have Sir Richard's conclusions, or the conclusions that he has drawn about the very matter to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. It, too, will have to start with a blank sheet of paper, will it not?
Mr. Heseltine: I shall come to the precise point that the right hon. Gentleman has made. There is, however, an
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alternative, and I am surprised that he did not raise it: Sir Richard could have been asked to continue his inquiry. [ Laughter .] I am sure that Sir Richard will gather any impressions that he wishes from the amusement that that has engendered among Labour Members. Let me say at once that I am not in favour of that solution, because I think that it is in the public interest for Sir Richard to finish his report. By the time it is concluded, it will probably have taken virtually three years to complete, and cost the best part of £2 million. That is a matter of concern, and the House and a wider public would like the matter to be concluded.I am not convinced, however, that the House now wants another inquiry of that sort, any more than I am persuaded that the House wants Sir Richard, having finished with the Iraq inquiry, to be invited to extend his inquiry to deal with the wider issues involved in the Iran process.
Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East) rose --
Mr. Heseltine: It becomes apparent to me--adopting a step-by-step approach--that, by acclaim, the House has reached the very judgment that the Government reached a week ago. It does not want Sir Richard to go on; I do not think that it wants to start another Scott inquiry costing another £2 million, taking another three years and stretching into the next Parliament--which is what the right hon. Member for Copeland has asked it to do.
I am not persuaded that the right hon. Gentleman has made a case of any sort. All he has done is reveal, first, that the Government behaved properly in making an oral statement; secondly, that we were right to recognise the need for an independent inquiry; and thirdly, that we were right to suggest that the independent inquiry should be carried out by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, if it was so minded.
Immediately after my statement, the Committee's Chairman said that most of his colleagues
"would like to see a sharp inquiry into it quickly and not for it to drag on."
To all that I say amen. That is precisely the point that the right hon. Gentleman has not taken on board.
Mr. Donald Anderson rose --
Mr. Heseltine: What I find most questionable and doubtful about the right hon. Gentleman's position is the assumption that an inquiry carried out by a Select Committee of the House is not independent. Mr. Anderson rose --
Mr. Heseltine: No, the hon. Gentleman cannot intervene on that point. He has been trying to intervene for some minutes, and he now wants to try to link his question to the point with which I am now dealing, but he will not have the chance.
I happen to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Sir T. Sainsbury), who has now left the Chamber, that the Select Committee--under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn)-- does an impressive job. When I have appeared before it, it has never occurred to me that there is any escape from the rigorous questioning to which I am subjected. I have never for a minute believed that Labour or Liberal Members are in some way minded to make it easier for Ministers to escape the questions by giving the wrong answers.
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I believe that--in terms both of the desirability of moving the process forward and dealing with the questions as rapidly as possible, and of achieving a degree of independence that I personally believe members of the Committee to be uniquely charged with achieving, and to have proved themselves capable of achieving--the Government amendment is correct.The Chairman of the Select Committee has now written several letters to me on the subject of the mechanisms and procedures within which his Committee will work. I have tried to answer them; I did not answer the one that arrived at 3.25 pm today, but I shall do so at the earliest opportunity.
My intentions in suggesting this route for the House were to enable it to deal with the matter with dispatch, to co-operate with the Select Committee within the proper rules of the House and to answer questions that the House is entitled to ask and have answered. I commend the amendment to my right hon. and hon. Friends.
5.29 pm
Mr. Richard Caborn (Sheffield, Central): In the light of what has been said, I had better clarify the position. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) spoke about the United Kingdom's reliance on arms exports. The Select Committee on Defence and the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service are jointly meeting on that very issue and will, one hopes, report before the recess. It is important for me to update the House on the current situation and on the response of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry to the request by the President of the Board of Trade for an inquiry into BMARC and exports to Singapore and Iran. The Committee discussed those matters on Wednesday and, as is right, we take the President of the Board of Trade's request seriously. What will happen after tonight's vote is a matter for the House and not for the Select Committee.
To the best of my knowledge and that of my officials, this is only the second time that a Secretary of State or, in this case, the President of the Board of Trade, has requested a Select Committee to hold an inquiry. It is usually the other way round. For the record, the only other request related to the closure of 31 pits. When the members of the Committee discussed the matter last week, we were mindful of the inquiry by the previous Select Committee on Trade and Industry into exports to Iraq, Project Babylon and the long-range gun. Anyone who revisits that inquiry will see that its report was inconclusive because the Committee did not have access to a number of Departments outside the Department of Trade and Industry.
The President will probably recall that my first action on becoming Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry was to write to his Department asking for clarification of that issue. Perhaps he would like to check the record on that. I said that it was unfortunate that the Select Committee could not reach a conclusion because it was denied access to people and papers.
The other area in question relates to Customs and Excise. On Wednesday, the Select Committee wanted to make sure that it would be able to get access to all the information that has been available to the Department of Trade and Industry--the information that was referred to in the President's statement.
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Mr. William Cash (Stafford): The hon. Gentleman speaks about information, which he could obtain from civil servants. Does that include advice tendered to Ministers? What was the attitude of the Department in that respect?Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the House that there is a 10- minute limit on speeches.
Mr. Caborn: When all the information in the letters is revealed--and I do not intend to do that in this debate--the House will see that, as the President said, a number of letters passed between the Department and the Select Committee. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is that the matter has been raised and that we are still awaiting answers.
As has been said, we are dealing with a subject that is nearly a decade old and many of the civil servants who were in place then may no longer be there. That was another area of concern when the Select Committee was scrutinising the issue of the Iraqi super-gun. A number of key areas make the inquiry unique and dispensation may be required from some Ministers. I shall not go into detail but I can tell the House that the Select Committee is corresponding with the Department to resolve that. I hope that the Committee will have resolved those questions by Wednesday and will decide, first, whether to proceed with the inquiry and, secondly, on the terms of reference. The Committee operates under Standing Order No. 130, but that will need to be expanded if we are to carry out a thorough inquiry. As the President said, it may be short. I hope that it will be and that we shall be able to focus on clear terms of reference and to present a report to the House.
Select Committees are responsible to the House, and we must balance the President's request, which we take seriously, and the information, people and papers that the Government will allow for scrutiny against the credibility of the Select Committee system. As Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry I am the custodian of its credibility. The DTI and the President must allow the Committee access to information which it believes is necessary for a thorough inquiry.
Sir Cranley Onslow (Woking): The Committee has not yet had an opportunity to discuss the exchanges that the hon. Gentleman has had. I hope that he will not presume to anticipate the Committee's collective decision.
Mr. Caborn: The right hon. Gentleman is a member of that Committee and knows that I do not anticipate anything, because things can go badly wrong. I assure him that all the information that has passed between the DTI and me over the past seven days will be presented for objective analysis. I hope that all members of the Committee will ensure its credibility by making sure that we have access to all the information because if we do not do that, our report will be inconclusive. That will depend on the House's decision, but if the Select Committee is asked to conduct an inquiry it will do a thorough job.
5.36 pm
Sir Nicholas Bonsor (Upminster): I agree with my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. Plainly, we do not wish to have another long inquiry. We must dispose of this matter briskly and ensure a swift conclusion that the House can consider. The best way to
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