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Mr. Galloway: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Three times in the course of this debate--once this afternoon and twice this evening--the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) has launched a bitter, personal attack on me, which included attributing to me a totally false quotation. I did not rise to contradict it because I hoped to catch your eye in the six and a half hours that I have sat here. However, as I have not been called, would you advise me what remedy I have, as an hon. Member of this House, for a baseless, personal slur which was launched against me by another Member, to which I have not had the opportunity to reply?
Mr. Winnick: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I think that I have heard enough to deal with that matter. It is not a point of order for the Chair, but the hon. Gentleman has now had his say.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have dealt with that point of order. I call Mr. Maples.
9.21 pm
Mr. John Maples (Stratford-on-Avon): About 10 days ago, we had a defence debate and I told the Secretary of State that it was the eighth day of defence debates since 19 October, which was a few too many. Here we are back again a few days later. On none of those occasions, however, did we discuss a matter as important as this, with British troops about to go into action in the Gulf.
Given that our armed forces are about to be asked to go into action, they deserve to know that the country and the House are wholly behind them. The tenor of this debate has clearly shown that that is so, and I am delighted that all those who have spoken on the Opposition Benches were supportive of the Government, including my right hon. Friend the Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Most of those on the Labour Benches, including the hon. Members for Walsall, South (Mr. George), for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook), for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire), were wholly supportive of the Government's position.
The hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) put his finger on the crux of this matter, which is that Saddam Hussein wants to dominate the region. That is why we all feel that it is appropriate to have pursued the action that has been pursued in the past few years since the Gulf war--[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. An electronic device has gone off in the Chamber. Hon. Members must either learn to switch those off before they come into the Chamber or leave them outside the Chamber.
Mr. Maples:
Saddam's desire to dominate the region is at the crux of this matter, just as it was at the crux of the Gulf war. The west has vital interests in the region for a variety of reasons. Clearly, had Iraq got away with the invasion of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia would have been next, and he would soon have dominated the whole Gulf and the world's oil supplies. He would have become not just a threat to the rest of the region, but a violent, evil threat, armed with weapons of mass destruction. Those ambitions are not yet dead, which is one of the reasons why the Government's action is appropriate.
The Conservative Members who spoke all supported the Government's position. They made various points. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir R. Whitney) said that it is unrealistic to restrict oneself to basing all military action on UN resolutions. There are bound to be times when that is impossible and when it would paralyse our ability and that of our allies to take appropriate action, or delay it to the point when it was bound to lose much of its effectiveness.
My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Mr. Colvin) discussed the possible dangers imposed by the onset of Ramadan. I shall return to that and ask the Secretary of State's views on it. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), while making his usual eloquent pitch for the Territorial Army, cast doubts on the efficacy of using air power alone, a view shared by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and others.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley) talked about chemical and biological weapons and their dangers, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) drew attention to what he considered to be the double standard applied to Iraq and to Israel. He said that, with today's operation, we had embarked on a long-term policy whose implementation would be dangerous and difficult.
The debate came to life with the speech by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and the response that it provoked from my right hon. Friend the
Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King). They put forward the alternative opinions evident in the House, although those hon. Members who side with the right hon. Member for Chesterfield form a very small minority. However, the right hon. Gentleman could not have expressed his views more eloquently or passionately, and he provoked an equally eloquent and passionate response from my right hon. Friend.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield led a significant group of Labour Members opposed to Government policy. Among those whose dissent was visible to me were the hon. Members for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway), for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), for Islington, North(Mr. Corbyn) and for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon).
Mr. Galloway:
I want to point out that I did not speak in the debate, as I was not called.
Mr. Maples:
The hon. Gentleman spoke in response to the Prime Minister's statement, and on several occasions he indicated his dissent. The diatribes that he provoked from some other Labour Members made his opinion on the matter pretty clear.
I was surprised by the stance of the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell), which appeared to be that the United States and the United Kingdom should not intervene in circumstances such as obtain in Iraq and should not act as the world's police. That seems to sit rather strangely with the line that the hon. Gentleman took over Bosnia, when he used his position as a reporter to call for and promote intervention by the United States and the United Kingdom. I am not sure that the circumstances are as different as would be necessary if he were going to be able to sustain his argument.
The argument advanced by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield and those who agree with him deserves to be answered. I shall try to do so, but I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will do so as well. When Members on both Front Benches agree, there is a danger that minority opinions do not get answered. However wrong one considers them to be, they are entitled to a response.
The speech by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield was rather like the speeches of the late Enoch Powell, which required intent listening, offered a series of propositions and eventually ended with a conclusion with which one completely disagreed. At that point, one realised that somewhere along the way one must have been tricked by the logic. The right hon. Gentleman achieved the same feat, very eloquently and passionately.
The right hon. Gentleman seemed to make two specific points: first, that, in the absence of agreement under article 46 of the United Nations charter, the action was illegal; secondly, that it was anyway immoral to bomb in circumstances where there might be civilian damage and casualties. The point about the legality of the action seemed to imply that it would be all right if there had been an appropriate United Nations resolution. However, I do not understand how the absence or presence of such a resolution could determine whether the action was moral.
Mr. Dalyell:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Maples:
I shall finish this point. If the attack was immoral, I do not see how a United Nations resolution
That inconsistency was pointed out in a trenchant intervention by the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie). He crippled the argument of the right hon. Gentleman for Chesterfield simply by asking what the right hon. Gentleman would do. The right hon. Gentleman fell back on some rather legalistic points, but essentially there is no answer to the question. Those who say that the Government and the action being pursued are wrong can, perfectly justifiably, be asked what they would do, but they never have an alternative to offer. They must accept that the result of having no alternative policy and of not pursuing the action that is proposed would be that Saddam Hussein would be left in place, in relatively peaceful circumstances, to pursue his policy of arming himself with weapons of mass destruction, thus posing an even greater threat to the peace of the region than at present.
Mr. Dalyell:
Before we leave the question of morality, the hon. Gentleman will not have had the opportunity to see the film footage being shown tonight of the annihilation of parts of Baghdad. It is really vomit-making. It is pretty terrible to think that we are responsible, and that is a moral question.
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