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8.12 pm
Mr. Rupert Allason (Torbay): May I remind the House that one of the most important people involved in the debate today is Paul Henderson? He is a man who volunteered his services to the Security Service when he was travelling behind eastern Europe. He was subsequently recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service. In my judgment, and, indeed, that of Mr. T, who gave evidence for him at the Old Bailey, he is a very brave man, particularly as he was willing to go back to Baghdad after the execution of Farzad Bazoft.
In my judgment, officials in Whitehall would have been better off trying to find ways to get Mr. Henderson a medal than trying to put him in prison. It is a fact that there was a conspiracy to put him in prison. If one reads volume 3, and all of section G, one will see that it is quite clear that every possible obstacle was put in the way of his defence. It is also perfectly clear that the support that was given, in terms of documents to the defence,was given grudgingly. That is also in the report.
Mr. Henderson was the subject of public interest immunity certificates, and I shall pursue that issue, as it is important. It is not just a matter for spies and arms dealers. PIIs are used all too frequently, particularly by abusing the term "national security". There are several different ways in which one can apply for a PII certificate, and using the words "national security" takes the matter into a completely different category.
As is made clear in G11.9, in November 1991,the Home Secretary signed a certificate to say that,if documents went to Matrix Churchill defendants,it would result in
being killed. The only innocent civilian who was putting his life at risk and was likely to be killed was Paul Henderson, and all he wanted was confirmation from the Government that he had worked for MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service.
Mr. Bellingham:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Allason:
I shall not, I am afraid.
There is clear evidence of the abuse of the term "national security". Look at G10.28. Government lawyers took three particular lines. Their third line of defence was applications for PII certificates on the grounds of national security. It is astonishing that the abuse of the words "national security" in applications for PII certificates was disputed by David Bickford, legal adviser to SIS and the Security Service. That is quite clear in G18.40.
The precedents for national security are also quite clear:
That is what Lord Justice Donaldson said was, in effect, a trump card.
I quote again a judgment used as recently as 1993:
It is quite clear that only Ministers can decide these issues. They should not pass the matter to the courts.
Indeed, in a case in which I was directly involved, where I was the defendant, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) said in his certificate:
In short, the words "national security" turn PIIs into a trump card, to the disadvantage of defendants.
Mr. Bellingham:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Allason:
No, because time is pressing.
The idea that some of this damage to national security could be "unquantifiable", as described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones),is quite risible.
I now deal with the conduct of the Attorney-General, whose integrity I do not doubt for one moment. The fact, however, is that he failed to stop the prosecution at an early stage. It is also the case that somebody somewhere failed to tell the judge of the President of the Board of Trade's reservations about the certificate that he had signed. Most significantly, the advice that the Attorney-General gave regarding PIIs and the duty of Ministers was perceived by Lord Justice Scott to be wrong. If Scott is wrong, the offence is even greater, because there was no even-handed approach to the suppression of the documents going to the defence, because the PIIs were used only to disadvantage the defence.
The fact is that, even after calling in the Matrix Churchill papers, the Attorney-General still had no idea that Henderson was an SIS agent. The question that has yet to be addressed is why the Director General of the Security Service, Sir Patrick Walker, or the chief of the SIS, Sir Colin McColl, simply did not take a stroll down Whitehall to Buckingham gate and tell the Attorney-General, "This is our man." What message does that give to other people who wish to assist our security and intelligence services?
As regards the future, I very much hope that we shall have a complete review of the way in which PIIs are used. I should like to see a Crown Immunity Bill so that we can
get rid of the mess of judge-made law. I would like it in statute, so that we can all understand the criteria by which Ministers can or cannot claim public interest immunity.I should also like a substantial review of Customs and Excise to be carried out, removing its right to bring independent prosecutions, and making it subordinate to the Crown Prosecution Service.
It is clear from paragraph 27 of G17 that Customs and Excise was out of control, and working on auto-pilot. The letter from the chairman, Sir Brian Unwin, to Sir Colin McColl complaining about the evidence of his officer in the Old Bailey, describing Paul Henderson as a very, very brave man, is one of the most disgraceful letters that I have ever seen. Sir Brian should be ashamed of himself; but I am delighted that, at least on that occasion, Sir Colin was willing to stand up for one of his officers.
No doubt the compensation issue will be dealt with elsewhere, but the fact remains that 700 people lost their jobs at Matrix Churchill. Some two and a half years ago, I wrote that it struck me as appropriate for about seven others to lose their jobs at Westminster. I hope that, when he winds up, my right hon. Friend will agree that PII certificates should never again be used in a criminal case to cover whole classes of document; I also hope that he will agree that there should now be a presumption of disclosure, not suppression.
As for the squabbling of judges and lawyers in the columns of The Times about who is right and who is wrong about public interest immunity and Crown immunity, let us make that a matter for the House. Let us pass statute law once and for all, so that we never again see such a disagreeable mess--a mess that could have allowed innocent men to go to prison. We must err on the side of disclosure, even if that means redacting documents and blotting out sensitive areas. PII certificates are a legitimate instrument to protect witnesses and the identities of informants, but it is high time the House acted to prevent future abuse.
I do not care so much about the export of dual-purpose machine tools to the middle east, and I am not particularly concerned about the writing of disingenuous letters to my parliamentary colleagues; but I do care about PII certificates, because they can affect all our constituents.I am currently in touch with two gentlemen who feel that they are the victims of injustice, because evidence that they wanted to deploy in their defence was suppressed through instruments of this kind--instruments that can give rise to considerable injustice.
Mr. Terry Davis (Birmingham, Hodge Hill):
Several Conservative Members have tried to suggest that this whole affair resulted from the Government's concern for exports and jobs. They should try telling that to my constituents who used to work at Matrix Churchill, and lost their jobs in the aftermath of the prosecution of three of its executives. They should try telling it to my
The debate is not about exports, jobs or the arms trade; I wish it were. It is about Sir Richard Scott's report. There should be no difference between us about the facts found in that report. Sir Richard says that the guidelines for exports to Iraq were changed, and I make no complaint about that; the Government were entitled to make the decision.
Sir Richard also finds, however, that among Ministers present at the meeting was the present Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave). That cannot be denied. He also finds that it was decided that full disclosure should not be made to the House of Commons. The Government and the Opposition will disagree about whether full disclosure should have been made, but that is not the real point.Sir Richard goes on to find that the right hon. Member for Bristol, West sent 38 misleading letters to Members of Parliament who had inquired about the guidelines for exports to Iraq, and that is wrong.
Lawyers tell me that, according to a legal principle, "The thing speaks for itself." If someone takes action that has obvious and automatic consequences, it can be assumed that that person intends those consequences.I should have thought that sending 38 misleading letters would mean that the intention was there. I can understand someone's making a mistake once or twice; I can understand their sending five misleading letters; but what about 10, 20, or even 38?
The right hon. Member for Bristol, West--the present Chief Secretary--says that he did not intend to mislead those 38 Members of Parliament, and Sir Richard Scott believes him. As the right hon. Member for Bristol, West is not only an honourable Gentleman but a Privy Councillor and therefore a right honourable Gentleman, we must believe him: we must believe that he did not intend to mislead when he signed those letters.Sir Richard says, however, that the letters were designedly misleading, so someone intended to mislead the38 Members of Parliament.
Of course, we all realise that the right hon. Gentleman did not sit down and dictate 38 letters. They were drafted for him, and they were drafted to mislead the recipients. One civil servant has had the moral courage to resign, but others are still there, and some seem to have been promoted. That is wrong, but it extends to a high level in the civil service.
I see no evidence that the Government will do anything about the way in which the civil service has behaved. The Scott report has destroyed any faith I had in the honesty and integrity of the civil service, and I believe that the same applies to most of my hon. Friends--and, perhaps, many Conservative Members. I am afraid that the question of what is to be done to restore that honesty and integrity, and the respect in which the civil service used to be held, will have to be put to a Labour Government after the next general election, because we shall see no action from the present Government.
The guilt of the civil service, however, does not let the Chief Secretary off the hook. He signed 38 misleading letters. I can think of only two explanations. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman does not read the letters he signs:
perhaps he simply writes "Dear Tom, Dick or Harry . . . Yours, William", in which case a rubber stamp might as well be issued to civil servants. I do not think that he is as negligent as that, however. We must assume that,in his previous capacity, the right hon. Gentleman signed 38 misleading letters, having read them. He must have been in a position to know that they were misleading--as Sir Richard Scott has found--but did not realise that they were misleading. He just did not understand.
The right hon. Gentleman was present at a meeting that changed guidelines; he signed letters that said that those guidelines had not been changed; but he did not make the connection. He did not understand. Now he says that he did not intend to mislead--but we know that the letters were misleading. The Treasury has admitted that. Having put out a press statement a week ago saying that they were not misleading, it put out a new press statement saying, "Ah--we missed out the word 'intentionally'." The letters were misleading, but they were not intentionally misleading. The Chief Secretary did not intend to mislead 38 Members of Parliament; he just did not understand.
"innocent civilians both inside and outside the United Kingdom"
"If a responsible Minister stated that production of a document would jeopardise public safety it is inconceivable that any Court would make an order for its production."
"The decision on whether the requirements of national security outweigh the duty of fairness in any particular case is for the Government and not for the courts; the Government alone has access to the relevant information, and in any event the judicial process is unsuitable for reaching decisions on national security."
"The preservation of national security is the duty of the Crown which alone is effectively equipped to judge its dictates."
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