House of Commons Hansard Debates for 19 Jun 1995

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further case, which will cut across many inquiries, comes to court, they will not use the public interest immunity certificate suppression system, although they used it in the Matrix Churchill trial?

These are weighty and serious matters. Although we cannot leap to conclusions, we have here a mystery within several other mysteries. We have to seek the answer to the question why a full explanation of matters has never been given to Parliament.

Only tonight, in a parliamentary answer that I have just received and hardly had time to take on board, is it revealed that, of the 224 private export licence applications submitted by BMARC between 1986 and 1989, 149 had no supporting information about end users. That figure is 66 per cent., and not the 36 per cent. that was used by the President of the Board of Trade in his statement to the House. There is confusion and obfuscation about such a simple matter; the matters under investigation are far more serious.

The issue of Iran and Iraq is not some marginal matter, but one that took up the time of Governments and Departments, as we know from the Scott inquiry, through much of the 1980s. It is one of the great secrets of the 1980s, and it will, sadly, take far more, as I know to my cost as a former member of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry that investigated arms to Iraq, than a Select Committee inquiry to get to the bottom of these very murky affairs.

6.18 pm

Sir Jim Spicer (Dorset, West): It is right and proper for the Opposition to make as much of this matter as they can. I remind everyone in the House, however, that that bloody and bitter war lasted for eight years, and that during that war, many countries supplied both Iran and Iraq with massive amounts of weaponry. At the top of the list of suppliers to Iraq were the Soviet Union and France.

Most hon. Members will know that the French Government--or the French--are still owed some £12 billion for arms supplied during that war. My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor), the Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, made it quite clear that, compared with such a scale of supply of arms to both protagonists in that war, what we were doing was on the margin: £75 million to Iran and, over a ten-year period excluding the war--a large part of that period--about £500 million to Iraq.

During that period, Iran and Iraq scoured the world for weapons, and there have been many revelations of just what happened in other countries. At the top of the list of arms suppliers during that time were Austria, under a socialist Government, Belgium, under what to all intents and purposes was a socialist Government, and Sweden under a socialist Government. They have all had scandals involving such sales. Therefore, it is no surprise that parent companies such as Oerlikon should make use of subsidiaries in this country to pursue their lucrative trade with either Iraq or Iran.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) has made BMARC's situation and the relationship with Oerlikon absolutely clear. May I remind the House that the war between Iraq and Iran ended in August 1988? It was not until September 1988 that my right hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken), the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, became a non-executive director.

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I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) is not present. His remarks were not only unfair but showed a total lack of knowledge about the role of a non-executive director of any company whatever.

Mr. Rogers: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Jim Spicer: I am sorry, but I do not have time.

If I had been appointed a non-executive director in September 1988, I would not have known about the affair, because the contract was complete, with one shipment still to go. That one shipment went out through Oerlikon. That is a fact which can become public knowledge, and I hope that it will come before the inquiry when it is held. The Opposition are asking for an outside independent inquiry. All the evidence of the Scott inquiry shows that such an inquiry would be precisely the wrong way in which to conduct our affairs and to achieve natural justice for those who appear before it, to which they are entitled. There can be no valid reason for any inquiry in which one person becomes the prosecutor, the judge and the jury. The result is muddle and delay. As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade made quite clear in his speech, there would be delay on a massive scale, which is exactly what the Opposition have said today that they do not want.

Let us have faith in ourselves, conduct our own investigation through the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, and, in the light of its report, decide what we should do.

6.22 pm

Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North): We have heard Conservative Members put some pretty wafer-thin arguments this afternoon, but the previous speech excelled. It is astonishing at times such as this how limited, in the view of Tory Members of Parliament, is the role of non- executive directors. As for the Scott inquiry being the wrong way to conduct "our affairs", it might be the wrong way for Conservative Members to conduct their affairs--one can understand their reservations about the Scott inquiry--but Labour Members think that it is a very good way in which to conduct our affairs, the nation's affairs, to get at the truth about complex issues.

We also heard the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) put a remarkable defence that the affair was all beyond the reach, knowledge or control of Parliament because a Swiss company was involved initially. Of course it does not matter who owns the company; it is where the arms are manufactured that is critical for export licences. We have heard a very thin--

Mr. Rupert Allason (Torbay): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Wilson: I must remind the hon. Gentleman that, for the second time recently, the Government have breached the Jopling rules by arranging to make a statement on an Opposition Supply day. I certainly do not intend to give very much of my time to interventions.

Mr. Allason: One point.

Mr. Wilson: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman even attempted to catch Mr. Deputy Speaker's eye. He is certainly not going to waste my time.

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I want to ask the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer) a question. He said that, if he had become a non- executive director of BMARC in 1988, he would have known nothing of contracts entered into in 1986. He appears to consider that a proud boast. But would he, for instance, have known anything of BMARC contracts entered into in 1989, such as the contract to supply fuses to Iraq worth £3 million, via Jordan as a conduit? Would he have regarded that as being any of his business as a non-executive director? If the answer to that is also no, it tells us more about the hon. Gentleman than it does about the duties of non-executive directors.

Sir Jim Spicer: If I were a non-executive director, I would not be running the company on a day-to-day basis. I would have a brief report on the work of the company. The board meeting that I would attend would be-- perhaps--two hours long and cover a whole range of subjects. The executive directors would have the responsibilities.

Mr. Wilson: We understand that, but the hon. Gentleman chose to raise the role and duties of non-executive directors. I asked him a specific question about whether he would have seen it as his duty to know anything about where orders for £3 million worth of fuses were going, when they were going to one of the world's most lethal trouble spots in breach of his Government's rules and laws on the export of arms.

Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton): My hon. Friend is really touching on the defence of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, which is basically that he was on the board but did not know about such contracts, especially the LISI project. Is not the real problem that a number of BMARC contracts have ended up in Iran or Iraq and that the response of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is that he was on the board, but did not know about them? Does not that weaken the right hon. Gentleman's position enormously?

Mr. Wilson: My hon. Friend makes his own point. I want to be absolutely clear that, to Labour Members, this debate is not about the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is about the firm BMARC and the inquiry into it. Any emerging information that either worsens or secures the position of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is a by-product of that inquiry.

The issue on which we shall shortly be asked to vote is quite specific. Conservative Members are not being asked to participate in some primary contest for the Tory party leadership or even to demonstrate their support for the Chief Secretary. Incidentally, we can all sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman in his discovery that fax machines, like swords of truth, are two-edged weapons. We are concerned about whether there should be an independent inquiry into what has become known as the BMARC affair.

Mr. Allason: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Wilson: No, I will not give way.

The case for an independent inquiry similar to the Scott inquiry is, as we have demonstrated in the debate, unanswerable. We have not heard any worthy answers from Conservative Members. The outrageous conduct of Ministers-- Ministers who still hold office--towards the

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directors of Matrix Churchill forced the Government to establish the Scott inquiry, with a remit to investigate only matters related to arms for Iraq. All the prima facie evidence, including that referred to in the statement on Tuesday by the President of the Board of Trade, suggests that BMARC gives rise to questions as serious and as wide-ranging as Matrix Churchill and that arms for Iran is just as much a part of this filthy saga as arms for Iraq. The difference is that Ministers have managed to keep the lid on BMARC and arms for Iran for two years longer than was possible with Matrix Churchill and arms for Iraq.

That success, if it is worthy of the name, should certainly not be rewarded with a process of scrutiny that is any less rigorous than that established under Lord Justice Scott. The President of the Board of Trade did himself no credit today, in a blatant piece of casuistry, when he said that an independent judicial inquiry would have to start with a blank piece of paper. Equally, the Select Committee will have to start with a blank piece of paper unless it is in receipt of the conclusions of the Scott report.

The President of the Board of Trade mentioned a figure of £2 million, as if it were some exorbitant amount, for conducting the Scott inquiry. It is less than the single illegal order to which I referred a few minutes ago. What is the price of the sword of truth? How much is the country expected to pay to find out about the deceits and deceptions that were the stock in trade of the Government for such a long time? Two million pounds does not seem an excessive price for that process.

The Ministers involved in the affair, including the President of the Board of Trade today, have been anxious to suggest that they are dealing with matters that belong to some distant period and that have left a legacy which regrettably now has to be dealt with; far-off events of which they knew nothing. The spate of cock-ups, leading to the suppression of evidence and the misleading of Parliament, in which we are invited to believe give the convenient impression that the matter is something that has nothing to do with Ministers today; that it is all in the past. That is a false impression.

I do not intend to talk about what happened in the 1980s, because that is the proper material for an independent inquiry to deal with. I shall concentrate only on what has happened since the offices of Astra, the parent company of BMARC, were raided in April 1990. Last Tuesday, from this Dispatch Box, I asked the President of the Board of Trade a straightforward question, which he conspicuously failed to answer. I repeat it now. I said:

"Does he accept that, as far back as 1990, the Ministry of Defence seized files from Astra, the owner of BMARC, as part of a fraud investigation? Those files referred to Astra and BMARC trade with Iraq and Iran. Were the files handed to the DTI then? If not, why not? If they were, why have we had to wait five years for this statement?"--[ Official Report , 13 June 1995; Vol. 261, c. 605.] Tonight I add the words, "and this debate and this inquiry". Let me bring the summation of events right into the period when the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) held his present office. On 27 January 1993, Detective Inspector Berry of the Ministry of Defence police wrote to the receivers for BMARC, ostensibly offering the return of

"all the property seized from Astra holdings and subsidiaries during our inquiries into allegations of corruption."

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Let us leave aside for a moment the clearly inaccurate use of the word "all". I should be interested to know who gave the political authority to Detective Inspector Berry to make that offer. I should like to know what consultation there was between the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Trade and Industry between the date in 1990 when the raid on the Astra offices took place and 27 January 1993, when the offer, ostensibly to return everything that had been taken, was made.

It is beyond peradventure that the material taken from the offices--all the material, the totality of the material--could have painted a full and startling picture of BMARC's activities during the years in question. It would have brought BMARC within the ambit of the arms to Iraq as well as the arms to Iran inquiries. It would have provided vital information about the role of the intelligence services in facilitating Britain's role as gun runner to the world. So is it conceivable that the material was merely offered for return to the receivers without its full import being assessed at the highest levels of government and then acted upon? The question is rhetorical. The answer is no, it is not conceivable. The Prime Minister announced the setting up of the Scott inquiry in November 1992. By that time, the researches of the Ministry of Defence police were well advanced. The material obtained from BMARC was in the possession of the Government. Will the President of the Board of Trade confirm that, from that day to this, the Ministry of Defence has returned none of the material that it took from the offices of Astra or BMARC to the Scott inquiry?

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the indictment is even more serious? Will he confirm that the Scott inquiry was set up with a remit restricted to arms to Iraq, to which Lord Justice Scott has subsequently adhered, to the exclusion of the BMARC affair, at a time when Ministers knew that what was in the BMARC papers--the President of the Board of Trade's statement last week was the merest tip of the iceberg--should have led to the Scott remit being widened to include both BMARC and arms to Iran? That is what the Government frustrated, not in the late 1980s but right up to the mid-1990s.

Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend is rightly cataloguing what has been going on. I am not sure whether he heard my speech, in which I quoted an answer given to me by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton), who was a Minister in the DTI at the time, to the effect that the cost of the DTI's own investigation into Astra over a three-year period had come to £2,170,000. Perhaps the President of the Board of Trade ought to look into where that money went if it did not provide him with sufficient information to answer my hon. Friend's question last week.

Mr. Wilson: My hon. Friend makes his own point well. The thrust of what I am saying is that the information was there. It was in the possession of the Government if they had wished to use it. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) says that that is irrelevant. It is highly relevant.

Mr. Allason: I said no such thing. I said that there was not a shred of evidence and you know it. Furthermore, the debate this afternoon is a disgrace. You have not been able to bring home the bacon.

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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. Members on both sides should address each other as hon. Members, not "you".

Mr. Allason: Would the hon. Gentleman care to answer this question? Does he agree that the sole issue here is whether end user certificates were misused? If that is the case, does he have the slightest evidence that any one director of BMARC knew that those end user certificates would be misused? The answer clearly is no, and the hon. Gentleman knows it.

Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman does not come to the Chamber very often and cannot be expected to know the rules. If he has been busting a gut to get in with that intervention for the past 10 minutes, he really has problems. If he thinks that that is the sole issue, he is very much mistaken and he will find out a great deal to his cost.

Will the President of the Board of Trade confirm that it is essential that all the documentation--this is the reply to the hon. Member for Torbay-- removed from the offices of Astra and its subsidiaries should be at the disposal of the independent inquiry that we seek tonight? That includes the documents that so mysteriously turned up at the weekend, but not only those documents. It includes the documents--there are plenty of them--which are still in the possession of the Ministry of Defence or the DTI and also those documents that have already been returned to the receiver. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins) about the role of the receivers was well taken. Those documents, too, should be put into the hands of an independent curator in order that there can be no question about their total, unqualified availability to those who are charged with inquiry into the affair.

Now we come to the nub. When the Minister sums up, we shall want an answer to the question whether all the papers taken from the offices of Astra and its subsidiaries will be at the disposal of the inquiries that are proposed. That is the absolutely crucial question. Any hedging on the answer will confirm our worst suspicions. Fortunately, on that point, if on no other, we have assistance from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I quote an extract from the transcript of the BBC's "Question Time" last Thursday. It runs: "Mr. George Robertson: `Will they get all the papers, all the documents, MI6, and the rest?'

Mr. Aitken: `Yes, MI6, all the documents, they have been promised all the documents.'

Mr. Dimbleby: `This has happened today, has it?'

Mr. Aitken: `Yes, today.'

Mr. Robertson: `And all the confiscated papers?'

Mr. Aitken: `Which are the confiscated papers? I didn't know there were any. I am sure they can get any papers they want.'" We have it on the authority of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that the inquiry, under whichever auspices it is held, will receive all the papers, the intelligence reports and everything that it needs, including every bit of paper that was removed from the offices of Astra in 1990. We shall want to hear only one answer when the Minister replies to the debate. Does he stand by the promise of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in that respect or does he not? Will every bit of paper be available to the inquiry or will it not? Those are the only answers on which the Minister will be judged.

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Let me deal briefly with the position of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. First, I should sympathise with him over his weekend difficulties with a fax machine. A rather dire message from someone who was apparently trying to help him was faxed to an art dealer in north London. That public-spirited gentleman then supplied it to the public prints. How ironic that the Chief Secretary, who has spent years in cahoots with arms dealers, should have fallen foul in that way to an art dealer.

When, as has now been confirmed, the Ministry of Defence failed to return all the BMARC papers to the receiver, the right hon. Gentleman was Minister of State for Defence Procurement. He is now a Treasury Minister and Customs and Excise is inquiring into the affairs of his former company. He is a Cabinet Minister, whose Cabinet colleague, the President of the Board of Trade, has authorised two inquiries into the company of which he was a director. Is there no level of conflicting interest at which the right hon. Gentleman will step aside--at least until the inquiries are completed--or will he continue to brass-neck it out for as long as he can get away with it? Will he wait, to quote the famous fax, for

"the straw that breaks the camel's back"?

I have a great deal of respect for the Select Committee on Trade and Industry and in particular for its Chairman, but the inquiry is patently not a job for it. It is too big, too complex and too forensic for the procedures of a Select Committee. The case for an independent inquiry, in parallel with the inquiry of Lord Justice Scott, is unanswerable. I warn Ministers that, if they successfully resist that request, it will be a pyrrhic victory. The questions will still be asked and the evidence will still emerge. Those who have sought to present themselves today as honest brokers will be recognised instead as those who have prevented, even at this late stage, a proper inquiry. They will be clearly identified as part of the problem rather than of the solution.

The President of the Board of Trade should remember that the biggest cover- up in modern political history came to be known as "All the president's men". Meanwhile, let me assure the House that the questions will continue to be asked and the sword of truth will gradually turn in the proper direction.

6.41 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Technology (Mr. Ian Taylor): This debate has been intriguing. From the Order Paper, it appeared to be a request for a public inquiry, but the way in which Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen have conducted the debate suggests that they do not want an inquiry. They want, instead, to prejudge everything. They have used the debate purely to make accusations based on flimsy evidence and make allegations against Ministers, past and present. They have used words such as "conniving" and other emotive words that are not fitting given that, last week, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade made it clear that certain information needed to be revealed to the House. He said that that information needed to be followed up in detail. He suggested that the Select Committee on Trade and Industry should look into the matter if it saw fit to do so.

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The best speech today came from the Chairman of that Select Committee, who clearly understands the implications of what is at stake and has confidence in the authority of the House to take action when such matters are brought to its attention.

Simply because things have happened differently from what people had thought, the automatic response should not be to reach for the nearest judge. The call for an inquiry is not some attempt to keep judges in work. It should not be used as an attempt to prolong inquiries year after year.

The inquiry of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry will attempt, however, to get to the bottom of something that has been brought to the attention of the House. Its Chairman understood that and I am delighted that he addressed some of the substantive issues involved. I am also aware that, on behalf of his Committee, he is in correspondence with the President of the Board of Trade about some of the detailed matters that need to be settled. I hope that they will be settled before the inquiry begins. I understand that the Committee will consider its decision on Wednesday. We look forward to co-operating with the Chairman in pursuit of the attempt to get the documentation agreed.

It may be only the second time that a Minister has offered a Select Committee, certainly the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, such information, but that is what we have done. We have offered the Committee an opportunity to look into the matter. We have agreed to co-operate with it as fully as possible. The details of the documentation will be available. Hon. Members should take those facts into account carefully when considering how to vote.

Anyone in the House who believes that the authority of the House is sacrosanct should accept what two Chairmen of Select Committees have said today: Select Committees are ultimately responsible to the House. I was delighted that the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor), also said that Select Committees need to consider the matter and are quite capable of doing so.

My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster also made the important point that the issue before the House is not whether arms should be exported. This country exports arms perfectly legitimately and our defence industry employs many people. As I understand it, Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen have never said that they would stop defence exports. I do not believe that that is their policy, but if it were it would certainly be of great interest to many constituencies.

Dr. John Cunningham: It is not our policy.

Mr. Taylor: I note that the right hon. Gentleman has kindly helped me by making it clear that it is not Opposition policy to stop defence exports.

It is important to establish a licensing procedure and to ensure that it is followed as rigorously as possible. That procedure should enable officials to discover the ultimate destination of the products. All licence application forms have a box that clearly requests a statement about the end user and the ultimate consignee. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins) referred to such information, which on the face of it suggested that in 1988 Department of Trade and Industry officials were given an assurance by BMARC that the exports were destined for Singapore.

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The thrust of last week's statement from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade was that officials, having been given that information, then failed, for reasons which, with hindsight, we consider were not justified, to connect it with the intelligence that was available to the DTI in 1988. That raises genuine questions about such licenses as well as questions of procedure. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said this afternoon, and in relation to the Scott inquiry, the licensing rules have been tightened and adjustments made in the light of criticisms and the problems discovered.

The right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) made certain accusations about activities in the latter part of the 1980s. In one year, 1987, there were 98,000 applications for export requests and the simple connections were not made. That did not happen because Ministers did not want them to be made or because of some malicious attempt to evade export rules, but because of a cock-up. The fact is that life is simply not that exciting.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster): Not again.

Mr. Taylor: My hon. Friend may disapprove of that phrase. I did not invent it, but it has been used in the circumstances. It is a good deal more accurate than some of the accusations of Opposition Members. Life is simply not as exciting as they would wish us to believe. It is fortunate that they have not been in government recently; otherwise, they might have discovered that.

Mr. Rogers: The Minister has quite rightly drawn our attention to the importance of an effective licensing system to govern our arms export policy. Surely he accepts that part of the Opposition's argument is that at the time Ministers encouraged arms exporters to break the rules. The then Minister for Trade, Alan Clark, documented evidence, which has been submitted to the Scott inquiry, about how he invited people to his office and told them to fill in forms in such a way as to confuse officials. A politician did that, not Ministry officials.

Mr. Taylor: Once again, the hon. Gentleman is indulging in allegations. The purpose of this debate is very clear, and it was stated by the right hon. Member for Copeland: it is whether there should be an inquiry, and what form the inquiry should take. If the hon. Gentleman wants to make allegations, he can do so in that context. The Department's willingness to produce documentation is evidence of our openness.

Mr. Wilson: Time is getting on, and the Minister has not got round to dealing with my specific questions. Does he endorse the specific assurance given by the Chief Secretary on "Question Time" last Thursday about the total availability of documentation, including everything that was taken from Astra and the intelligence reports?

Mr. Taylor: The President of the Board of Trade is having discussions with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn)--the Chairman of the Trade and Industry Select Committee--about the documentation that is required. The hon. Gentleman, as a responsible Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, will know that certain documents must be handled with caution. [Interruption.] I will not listen to accusations and have fingers pointed at me when Opposition Members know very well that Governments wishing to get intelligence from sources do

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not reveal those sources immediately. The reality is

simple--revealing intelligence sources risks lives, and Governments depend on their intelligence services.

How that intelligence is then handled within Government is a proper matter for discussion. That is what the President of the Board of Trade referred to in his statement, and that is why my right hon. Friend is having discussions with the Chairman of the Select Committee about the documentation that is required, and how that can be handled to allow the Select Committee to start its inquiries. That is the right way to proceed. It is wrong for Opposition Members to point their fingers and jump up and down. They are attempting to cause difficulties which are likely to end--

Mr. Wilson rose --

Mr. Taylor: How am I to reply to the hon. Gentleman if he keeps rising to make points that he clearly forget to make during his own speech?

Mr. Wilson: This is precisely a point that I remembered to make in my speech. Is the Minister repudiating the statement made by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on the BBC's "Question Time" last Thursday night- -yes or no?

Mr. Taylor: I am answering this debate on the basis not of television programmes that I did not watch but of information that the House has before it as a result of the statement made in the House by the President of the Board of Trade last week. As I have said, detailed correspondence is going on between the President of the Board of Trade and the Chairman of the Trade and Industry Select Committee. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make specific allegations, I urge him to do so through the proper channels--the Trade and Industry Select Committee.

This debate--even in the terms framed by the Opposition--is not about detailed allegations, but about whether there should be a public inquiry and about what form the inquiry should take. The most suitable way of progressing is to have an internal inquiry by the Trade and Industry Select Committee, which is then accountable to this House.

Mr. David Shaw: Does my hon. Friend accept that the Opposition have no basis for saying that they know all about inquiries, because they resisted an inquiry into Monklands district council? In the last hour, it has been confirmed that serious allegations of corruption are to be referred to the police.

Mr. Taylor: My hon. Friend has played a notable role in pushing for such inquiries into that matter. That is not the matter before the House this evening and I realise that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would stop my continuing on that subject. However, perhaps it does go to show that the desire for information to be made public is not always carried through in detail by Opposition Members in terms of their own affairs.

We have an important responsibility to try to find out more about what might have gone wrong. The Opposition are going from pillar to post in their reactions, and they seem less like seekers of truth and more like seekers of sensation. The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) said that he wanted the House to have a "far more wide-ranging inquiry than anything that has been suggested today."--[ Official Report , 13 June 1995; Vol. 261,c. 606.]

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The Chairman of the Trade and Industry Select Committee has rightly said that most of his colleagues would like to see a sharp inquiry--one that should not be allowed to drag on, as a wide-ranging inquiry would. The right hon. Member for Copeland called for a seven-course banquet of an inquiry. He said that BMARC should be the subject of a fully independent inquiry, quite separate from the Scott inquiry. That new inquiry should have access to all the documents and reports relevant to BMARC, and should be headed by a judge. One effect of the right hon. Member for Copeland's suggestion would be that we would not know the results of the inquiry for years. The inquiry would incur vast costs, and would not even have the advantages that Lord Justice Scott had from looking into export licensing operations. That is not an argument in favour of a genuine inquiry into the facts. I never give up hope with the right hon. Gentleman, who is a smiling and charming person who listens to arguments. I wish him to listen to this argument.

The right hon. Gentleman cannot really be saying that he wants to push the matter into the public domain with a judge and with all the panoply that we have seen with the Scott inquiry in order to seek the facts rapidly, because the result would be an expensive rigmarole. Why does not the right hon. Gentleman share the confidence of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central in the Select Committee system, particularly a Select Committee under the chairmanship of one of his colleagues?

One or two colleagues referred to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. My right hon. Friend has made a clear statement to the House that he was not aware that goods were being exported through Singapore to any other country, including Iran. The House has a proper respect for statements made by Members of Parliament to the House, and the tradition of the House to respect such personal statements should be continued in the circumstances. I believe that my right hon. Friend made a clear statement and--as far as I am concerned--that is that.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central picked apart a question to which I replied this afternoon, but it is a fact that the President of the Board of Trade made a perfectly accurate statement to the House last week. It is in keeping with the willingness of the DTI to provide full information that the information that the hon. Gentleman has received this afternoon is accurate in all respects. When the hon. Gentleman looks at the answer that is published tomorrow in Hansard , he will acknowledge that the average overall figure is 36 per cent.

The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North challenged us about various documents found by the Ministry of Defence, but that is a proper matter for the inquiry and I do not intend to go into it this afternoon. The Ministry of Defence police have made a statement over the weekend, and those questions will continue. I am sure that the Trade and Industry Select Committee will look at that matter. I am afraid that we have not thrown much light on the key subject of whether there should be an inquiry. If Opposition Members were genuinely interested in getting the facts, they would have agreed with Conservative Members that the Select Committee system has been set up for this purpose. The DTI is clearly willing to provide evidence. In the circumstances, the sooner we can proceed to a short, sharp but accurate inquiry, the better it will be.

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When the President of the Board of Trade and I first heard our officials' findings in relation to BMARC's exports to Singapore, we admit that we were in no doubt about their significance and we kept inquiring for further details. Initially, the President and I asked questions that had been mentioned in the media regarding accusations that were made at the end of March. There has been no sudden desire to ferret out information. We believed that a clear series of events should be examined in the public interest and that resulted in last week's statement to the House.

I believe that it is the House's proper duty to take the matter forward and to ask the Select Committee to do its job. If it can do its job quickly, we will get to the facts and that will benefit all hon. Members.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:

The House divided: Ayes 267, Noes 291

Division No. 165] [7.00 pm

AYES

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Abbott, Ms Diane

Adams, Mrs Irene

Ainger, Nick

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Allen, Graham

Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Armstrong, Hilary

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Ashton, Joe

Austin-Walker, John

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Barnes, Harry

Barron, Kevin

Battle, John

Bayley, Hugh

Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Bell, Stuart

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Bennett, Andrew F

Benton, Joe

Bermingham, Gerald

Berry, Roger

Betts, Clive

Blair, Rt Hon Tony

Blunkett, David

Boateng, Paul

Bradley, Keith

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

Brown, N (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Burden, Richard

Callaghan, Jim

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Campbell-Savours, D N

Canavan, Dennis

Cann, Jamie

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

Chidgey, David

Chisholm, Malcolm

Clapham, Michael

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Clelland, David

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Coffey, Ann

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