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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. [Interruption.] Order. I have already adjusted the time given to the right hon. Gentleman.
6.23 pm
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills): I first want to say how much I appreciate the fact that the Prime Minister set up the inquiry. I must be like the fellow in a Bateman cartoon--the only person on my side who believes parliamentary answers and who would have engaged in argument with my constituents about whether we supplied defence-related equipment during 1988 and 1989 that enhanced the capacity of Saddam Hussein.I was born when one anathema threatened Europe. Many people in this country are aware that Saddam Hussein is another anathema. Thanks to the Prime Minister, we have an account of how we enhanced the defence capacity of Iraq. I find that deeply and profoundly disturbing.
I have tried to list the instances in just the first volume of the report where Sir Richard Scott identified that the Government were intending to mislead or be less than candid with Parliament and the people of this country.I jotted down just a few of the references before I ran out of resources, time and patience. They include: D1.27, D1.151, D1.165, D2.35, D2.36, D2.432. It goes on; there are pages and pages of it.
In D4.3, on page 501, Scott alludes to the evidence of Mr. Gore-Booth, and later to that of Sir Robin Butler. There we see clever men laying out an argument, the substance of which is to argue that half a picture may be an indication of the whole picture. We have to make it quite clear to Sir Robin Butler, Mr. Gore-Booth--an honoured servant who I understand has been promoted to the high commission in New Delhi--and such servants of the state that neither the House nor the country will be governed on the basis of half the picture.
That is profoundly important because as a Back-Bench Member of Parliament, I represent the constituency of Aldridge-Brownhills. In that I am equal to the highest in this land, those who govern us, who are dependent on the authority of their own electorate and answer directly through this House and at times of elections. I am profoundly disturbed that the intent behind the policy,if not to tell an untruth, was to give an impression that was designedly misleading.
At the very end of volume i, Sir Richard Scott says:
Some of us may have heard Mr. Raymond Seitz on the radio the other day making the observation that one of the features of the United Kingdom is that it has--perhaps--
the most powerful Executive of any western democracy. In fact, that was the challenge that worried Lord Hailsham when he wrote about an elective dictatorship. What stands between us and that is the candidness, openness and frankness of those who govern us. When they mislead, how do we know that the premises on which we argue our case are truthful?
Dame Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston)
rose--
Mr. Shepherd:
Please forgive me a moment. We are talking about the most difficult of all areas--the supply of armaments. Let each one of us consider when we relay to our constituents the basis of public policy how we can be certain of it when the dismal array of the intent of a civil service and bureaucracy with--I suggest--the acquiescence of Ministers is allowed to be set out in a report to the House. It is a serious judgment.
Mr. Shepherd:
If my hon. Friend will forgive me,I shall not give way because we are under a time restraint.
The report is of immense importance to each one of us and we should take it seriously. In the balance of judgment of the all-powerful Executive--more powerful than any in the western world--I must tell my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that I stand for the people of Aldridge-Brownhills and I will stand for the balance of the power of this Chamber against the Executive.
This is an important exclamation mark in our constitutional affairs, for Sir Richard Scott makes the observation that, time and again, Ministers failed in their constitutional duty to keep the House accurately informed. That is at the heart of our constitutional arrangements. How can I give assurances or say with certainty to anyone whom I represent that a policy is as stated by Ministers? In that, I had confidence, but perhaps I was naive.
Dame Jill Knight:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Shepherd:
If my hon. Friend will forgive me,I shall not give way as I am trying to finish my speech within the terms set out.
I hear from many of my hon. Friends that they know full well that the answer that they are given is meaningless. Unfortunately, I am sufficiently naive that I trust and believe the answers given. Without that foundation and certainty, the House is at grave risk of failing to represent the people who send us here. We in the House have the authority to hold Governments to account--in this country that authority comes from the people, not from the Crown--as we in turn will be held to account within a short time.
The cynical response of some people when addressing the report should make us pause and wonder. Does that not bring about a cynical response in the public?We should think about our standards and what we are meant to stand for. We are abased daily in the press as standing for so little. Is that not perhaps a reflection of the cynicism that we show way in the way in which we treat this matter? I ask my right hon. Friends to reflect on that because, in much of life, it is a mirror as to who and what we are.
I want--I prayed--for a stronger and more vigorous response. I know what needs to be done. First, we need a freedom of information Act. That will not be the complete answer, but I profoundly believe that people who know that, within a certain time, others can look over their shoulders, will act differently. Secondly, our Select Committees must be able to send for papers and men, and have the right to subpoena them without the need for a reference to the House. That will confirm the authority of the House.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton):
I value following the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills(Mr. Shepherd), not only because of the honourable and courageous speech that he has just made, but because he has covered some of the ground that I hope to cover this evening.
The House will be aware that my concern with the change in the guidelines on the embargo on arms exports to Iraq began long before the Matrix Churchill trial that triggered off the Scott inquiry. I wrote to the Prime Minister on 30 January 1992 about the matter. The Prime Minister replied to me on 17 February insisting that the guidelines had not been changed. The Scott report labels that letter inaccurate and misleading, whereas a preliminary draft had contained at least some element of the truth. That draft was doctored by the Prime Minister's Foreign Office private secretary, Mr. Wall, so that a relative truth became a total untruth. Just as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills asks why certain people can remain in office, I find it impossible to understand how the man who turned the Prime Minister's letter to me into a lie is now the British ambassador to the European Union rather than having been dismissed from the post in which he turned the Prime Minister, unwillingly, into the sender of an inaccurate letter.
However, despite what was done to the Prime Minister's letter to me, the Prime Minister knew the truth about the guidelines. That is made clear from the Scott report at D4.51, which the President of the Board of Trade shrank from allowing me to read out to the House earlier. In that passage, Mr. Wall again made it clear that
He told the Prime Minister that the Prime Minister knew about that when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
When the Prime Minister's letter to me became a matter of public controversy in November 1992, the Prime Minister's office made public the fact that the reason why the Prime Minister had not told me that there was a change in the guidelines was that the change, which the President of the Board of Trade denies existed, was already in the public domain. Reference was made to a statement made by Mr. John Goulden of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry.
Mr. Goulden made a statement on 28 January 1992 to the Select Committee in which he said:
No. 10 Downing street, on behalf of the Prime Minister, drew attention to that statement by Mr. Goulden as evidence of the fact that we were supposed to know about the change in the guidelines even though the Prime Minister was made by Mr. Wall to conceal that change from me.
Mr. Goulden said to the Select Committee:
He was there to tell the truth. The question that the House must answer is: was Mr. Goulden lying on 28 January 1992, when he had no motive to lie and said that it was his job to tell the truth, or are Ministers lying now, when they have every motive to do so?
The question that must also be asked is: why are Ministers putting a totally unsustainable interpretation on the report? The answer is that they exported arms to Iraq and, despite all the evidence that they should adopt a more severe policy towards Iraq, they deliberately adopted a far more lenient and favourable policy towards that country. Some of the arms exports to Iraq were listed in a memorandum to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry from the Department of Trade and Industry in April 1992. The list from the Government to the Select Committee included air defence simulator, armoured vehicle spares, armoured vehicle, artillery fire control, artillery board, explosives, fast assault craft, gun sound ranging equipment, hostile fire indicator, mortar-locating radar, pistols, rifles, shotguns, portable explosive detector and tank helmets. Those items were exported. When I wrote to the then Foreign Secretary--who has now made himself scarce--about those matters, he told me that those exports were considered by the interdepartmental committee and assessed as not breaching the guidelines.
The Government repeatedly adopted an over-friendly attitude to Iraq when evidence was being accumulated to show that they should have been exceptionally and increasingly wary. The Scott report demonstrates at paragraph D3.175 that in September 1988 the Prime Minister, then Chief Secretary, increased export guarantees to Iraq by £244 million above a total that was already £912 million.
A week ago the President of the Board of Trade, in a series of answers that reeked of casuistry, and also today, listed a series of events that he described as
He listed a series of malfeasances by Iraq. What did the Government do about them? When Farzad Bazoft was executed, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton
(Mr. Robertson)--on my behalf and at my direction--asked the Foreign Secretary to reconsider carefully the extensive trade credits that we offer Iraq. The Foreign Secretary said that to do this might do more harm than good.
Later that month, nuclear detonators bound for Iraq were discovered at Heathrow airport. On 29 March 1990, I asked the Foreign Secretary whether the Government would reconsider their attitude towards export credits for Iraq. The Foreign Secretary simply referred to his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton.I asked for the expulsion of the Iraqi ambassador, and the Foreign Secretary turned me down. The following month, Customs officers seized sections of the super-gun bound for Iraq. After attempting to dodge responsibility, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was forced to make a statement to the House on 18 April 1990. When my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East(Mr. Brown) stressed the seriousness of the situation, Nicholas Ridley accused him of going over the top on a scale outside anything previously experienced. The Government's casual and, indeed, cavalier reactions to these serious events would not have been lost on Saddam Hussein.
In July 1990, the situation became positively threatening. On 15 July, the Sunday Times reported that American customs agents had detained containers of furnace equipment, which they believed was to be used to produce titanium parts for Iraq's rapidly developing missile arsenal. It stated:
"In the circumstances, the Government statements made in 1989 and 1990 about policy on defence exports to Iraq consistently failed, in my opinion, to comply with the standards set by paragraphs 27 of the Questions of Procedure for Ministers and, more important, failed to discharge the obligations imposed by the constitutional principle of Ministerial accountability."
"the Howe Guidelines of 1985 were amended by Ministers in December 1988 but the amendment was never announced to Parliament."
"The guidelines set out by Sir Geoffrey Howe in '85 applied until December 1988, when the third guideline was amended. . . It was updated to take account of the fact that there was a cease fire."
"I am here before the Committee to tell you the truth."
"general situations of an extremely unpleasant kind".--[Official Report, 15 February 1996; Vol. 271, c. 1156.]
"Two of the giant furnaces are being manufactured near Glasgow by a subsidiary of an American company."
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