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Mrs. Beckett: With respect, I did not palm anyone off. I shall be astonished if the Conservatives do not take the opportunity of the Budget debate to allude continually to those issues. Today's statement was about practical preparations to enable us to join the single currency should the British people decide at some point that we wish to do so. The notion that that is the most momentous announcement made in the House for centuries is extraordinary. Those of us who recall the announcement that we were to join the European Union, never mind the whipped decisions to join the European single market and give up the veto--all decisions taken by Conservative Governments--will view the hon. Gentleman's remarks with astonishment.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): Will the right hon. Lady bear in mind the points made by her right hon. and hon. Friends about Iraq? If she cannot find time for a full debate on that, will she ensure that the Foreign Secretary comes to the House to make a statement as soon as he gets back from the Kosovo peace talks? This is a matter of huge national importance, and I invite the right hon. Lady to pay greater attention to the comments of her hon. Friends.
Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for raising that matter, because it enables me to correct something that I said in response to heckling by my hon. Friend the Member for Kelvin. I referred to the purchase of arms, but I meant the expenditure of money on the Iraqi armed forces. I shall bear in mind the hon. and learned Gentleman's request for a statement, but I remind him that there was an opportunity to raise the issue at Defence Question Time yesterday.
Mr. Garnier: That is not the point.
Mrs. Beckett: This is business questions, when hon. Members can ask for opportunities to raise matters that there has not so far been an opportunity to raise.
There was an opportunity to raise this issue only yesterday at Defence Question Time. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary seeks meticulously to keep the House informed, but I suspect that, should he come to the House to make a statement in the near future, it is possible that Kosovo will be more immediately on his mind than Iraq.
Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East): My right hon. Friend will be aware that the House always takes seriously the leaking of Select Committees or House reports. She will also be aware that our hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) volunteered to the Foreign Affairs Committee this morning that he had leaked an early draft of the Committee's report. Will she confirm to the House that the appropriate procedure is that adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee this morning? The matter should be referred to the Liaison Committee, which is meeting on Thursday this week. It will report back to the Foreign Affairs Committee and thence, probably via this House, to the Privileges Committee. The report of the Privileges Committee, after evidence has been taken, will be debatable in the House.
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The proper procedure, laid down in "Erskine May", provides for his Committee to discuss the matter and for it then to go to the Liaison Committee. I think--I am speaking from memory--that the proper course is for the Liaison Committee to send any matter that it thinks should be reported to the Privileges Committee. I am not sure that it goes via this House, but I shall check that. My hon. Friend is right: there is a proper procedure to be followed. I was confident that his Committee would follow it.
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate): Yesterday, the Home Secretary drew attention to the distinction between run-of-the-mill statements and other statements. Will the right hon. Lady be able to tell us which are run-of-the-mill statements before they are made? If not, will she ask Ministers to make their statements to this House first, with no briefing around them beforehand?
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman's question is based on a false premise, because that was not what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said. I am sorry to tell the hon. Gentleman that I listened carefully, and my right hon. Friend said that there was a distinction--however much one might deplore it--between the leaking or other disbursement of relatively run-of-the-mill documents, such as Green Papers or White Papers, and the leaking of the report of a judicial inquiry, which is not in any way--[Interruption.] I suggest that Opposition Members take this seriously. A judicial inquiry is, in itself, a serious matter. The report is not a Government document, or a Government policy facing criticism. It is the report of a judicial inquiry in which the Government's only role was to set up the inquiry so that the matters could be examined. The Government have nothing to defend or to be concerned about in terms of the publication and leaking.
As for the hon. Gentleman's desire to have matters reported to the House first, I entirely share it. I would simply say that, given that the action yesterday of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), the Conservative spokesman, was to deplore the Home
Secretary's action in launching an injunction in an attempt to protect the interests of the House, I take his exhortations with a pinch of salt.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
Given the breath-taking inadequacy of the statement from the Prime Minister which the House has just endured, will the Leader of the House find time for a statement next week by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which he is able, once and for all, to commit the Government to publish a White Paper on the economic, political and democratic implications of abolishing the pound? Does the right hon. Lady understand that the publication of such a White Paper would enable the Chancellor to declare whether he agrees with the former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez that the European single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community? Moreover, it will enable the Chancellor to explain why he believes that the control of the British economy should be given up permanently to people whom we do not elect and cannot remove.
Mrs. Beckett:
No doubt, there will come a time when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer may publish documents dealing with those issues, but, since he is supposed to be publishing his Budget in the relatively near future, I doubt whether he is working on those at the moment. As for the hon. Gentleman's reference to the breath-taking inadequacy of the statement, I have observed--as, I am sure, has the House--that there is no statement that has yet succeeded in taking away his breath.
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire):
May I reiterate my request to the Leader of the House, made on 4 February, that she arrange for a statement by the Secretary of State for Health on the progress of the royal commission on long-term care which--she will recall from the Health Secretary's statement on 4 December 1997--he confidently expected would report within 12 months, and which is now more than two months late?
Mrs. Beckett:
I will bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's request, which I will draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, who I am confident will be anxious to publish whatever he can as soon as he can.
5.13 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I raise a gentle point of order on behalf of a minority--a quartet of us? I refer tothe right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway) and me. We have no more wisdom than anyone else in this House, but it so happens that we are the four who have actually been to Iraq and have seen the holocaust. There are 560,000 dead children, and we have seen the pictures on the front of The Tribune newspaper. When one sees--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I must equally gently remind the hon. Gentleman--who has long experience in the House--that there are other opportunities to pursue a matter of argument. That is not a point of order for the Chair.
Mr. Shaun Woodward (Witney): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will be aware of the resignation this morning of the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross), following his leak to the Foreign Secretary of a Select Committee document in January. You will also be aware of a number of written questions to the Foreign Office asking when exactly it was shown drafts or amendments of the Sierra Leone report. The answers given have at best shown grave discrepancies, and the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) last week by the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), could have led hon. Members to believe that the Foreign Office had no sight of any document before 8 o'clock on the day of the embargo.
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