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9.20 pm
Mrs. Margaret Beckett (Derby, South): There can be no doubt that the Scott report and the ensuing discussions have been difficult for the public to follow because many of the issues are detailed and complex. This debate has given the House an opportunity to react to the report and to reflect on whether there are simple and clear-cut lessons--and if so, to determine what they are.
The House can reflect on whether any matters of fact emerge--whether the UK helped to arm Saddam Hussein, as suggested by the fact that the Matrix Churchill lathes, far from being dual purpose, were set up for arms production. Were some of the individuals involved acting in concert with agents of our intelligence services?Did the certificates signed by Ministers withhold information in the defence of those individuals?
The public have clear pointers to the judgment that they should make amid the welter of charge and counter-charge. There was the pre-publication rubbishing of Sir Richard Scott and his inquiry. Ministers who had chosen the form of the inquiry, and who insisted on it in the face of pressure from the late John Smith, later complained about the inquiry as if Sir Richard were to blame. Ministers sought to undermine the process, evidence and potential conclusions.
In this debate, the Government have chosen to prevent the House from taking a view. Why, if Ministers have no fear of the outcome? The arrangements for the report's
scrutiny were further evidence, should any be required,of the arrogance and incompetence of Ministers and of their utter contempt for the House. There has been no precedent set by any Government of any party for the insulting restrictions on Members of Parliament who were allowed a few hours to scrutinise a report that had been in the possession of Ministers for days--and on which they had the support, time and advice of many civil servants. That was all evidence of the Government's desperate desire to shield themselves from effective scrutiny in the first key hours, when Ministers hoped that their version of events would be irrevocably accepted--not least, and perhaps most of all, on the Conservative Benches.
Anyone who wants a touchstone--one simple piece of evidence by which to judge the Scott report and the events that it describes--need look no further than the handling of the report's publication. A Government who have nothing to hide do not shamelessly manipulate publication. A Government who continue to insist on such restrictions and even seem to tighten them after four or five days of sole access to a report's contents are not a Government who have found themselves exonerated in the report's pages.
The Government, after all, had every excuse for leniency. You, Madam Speaker, expressed concern on behalf of this House, as from time to time the Speaker has a duty to do. Sir Richard Scott made it plain that he had not sought and did not support the Government's withholding of the report from others in this way. Yet the Government continued to insist that it was necessary; and on 15 February, at the Dispatch Box, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry showed us why. It was a snow job. There were, he admitted, people at fault. The handling of intelligence was singled out--then, and repeatedly since. Few commentators have pointed out that this identified defect, acknowledged with a grace awarded to none of the others, could be regarded primarily--perhaps wholly--as a criticism of the civil service.
Ministers also decided that the Labour party was at fault. So civil servants were at fault and the Opposition were at fault, and Ministers alone were found to be without fault--at least by Ministers.
The Secretary of State put on a similar, and similarly disgraceful, performance today. He claimed to be accepting a number of the more technical and practical recommendations of Sir Richard Scott--but, it rapidly became clear, without accepting the basic conclusions from which those recommendations were drawn. The right hon. Gentleman repeated, as I understand he has done again on "Channel 4 News" this evening, there is nothing for any Minister to apologise for; and that the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General in particular--I quote the news bulletin--
So they should not even apologise, let alone take any more serious action.
These were not the findings of Sir Richard Scott.As time has gone on, the Secretary of State and his colleagues have grudgingly admitted that Sir Richard Scott found them to be at fault in some respects, and in forthright terms. In paragraph D3.123, for instance, he found that the guidelines were changed and that the argument that they were not was
Sir Richard repeats that time and again in the report. Ministers have a simple explanation for it, repeatedly voiced from the Tory Benches in this debate: Sir Richard was just wrong. He was right when he blamed others and when Ministers claim that he failed to find them guilty; he was wrong every time he found Ministers to blame or to be derelict in their duty to this House, and through us, to the country.
Crucially, Ministers claim that Sir Richard was wrong about the key issue of whether the policy changed on the handling of exports to Iraq, and about whether in consequence, as Sir Richard alleged, Parliament was misled. This charge lies especially at the door of the Chief Secretary. His evidence to the inquiry, like his attitude to its findings, suggests an unusual approach. What he seems to have told the inquiry, in essence, is that if the guidelines had been changed senior Ministers and Parliament should have been informed. They were not so informed, so the guidelines did not change.
It is evident that this argument failed to convinceSir Richard, who dismissed it in blunt terms. He said that the right hon. Gentleman repeatedly gave Members of Parliament answers which were misleading. In paragraph D4.62 Scott says that the Chief Secretary gave answers that were "inadequate and misleading".
It would of course be an absolute defence against this charge if the right hon. Gentleman had made such statements in ignorance of the facts that Sir Richard Scott states made the statements misleading. But it is plain that the Chief Secretary was not in ignorance of the facts. Indeed, he was better placed to know them than almost anyone else in Whitehall. But it is equally plain that the right hon. Gentleman has convinced himself that he had no intention to mislead, and he has convinced Sir Richard Scott that that is what he believes.
Is the right hon. Gentleman justified in this belief?His reasoning seems remarkably similar to his reasoning over the change in guidelines and reporting to Parliament: a change would have had to be reported; no change was reported; therefore no change occurred.
Similarly, the Chief Secretary's view seems to be that he is a man of honour, that a man of honour does not mislead the House and that, therefore, he did not mislead the House. Whatever else he may be, that facility in argument and ability to convince himself so fully of the logic of his own argument makes him a very dangerous man, who--on the evidence before Sir Richard Scott and on the evidence before the House--should not remain in office.
Mr. Stephen:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Ministers speak as though Sir Richard Scott, and only Sir Richard Scott, had cast doubt on the judgment that led the Attorney-General to tell his ministerial colleagues that they had no choice but to sign PII certificates to withhold a class of documents, irrespective of their contents, from the defence in the Matrix Churchill trial. That decision was said to be without precedent for that type of document in a criminal trial, in which the withholding of such evidence might lead to a conviction and to a possible gaol term--which might have been averted by the production of those documents.
There were clearly other reservations, which varied in kind. There was, for example, the Deputy Prime Minister's express reaction to the advice that he was given, which he described in these terms:
Sir Richard Scott found that the Attorney-General had a major responsibility for the prosecutor's instructions, and that he was personally at fault for not ensuring that the Deputy Prime Minister's concerns were conveyed to the court. Those and other criticisms cast doubt on the Attorney-General's competence in the functions he carries out in the House, which is why I should like to draw attention to the views expressed in a speech, in November, by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who will reply for the Government in this debate. On the question of ministerial responsibility, he said:
"did not make mistakes for which they should apologise."
"incapable of being sustained by serious argument".
26 Feb 1996 : Column 681
"no rational person, who had looked at the files, could have said that the documents should not have been disclosed."
"My view--indeed, the conventional view--is, I believe, founded on common sense. It is that:
Ministers cannot possibly be held personally blameworthy . . . for everything . . .
the test in any particular case should be the scale of the failure; and whether a decision or action of the Minister's leads directly to it."
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