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Mr. Howard: First, is the right hon. Lady suggesting that it is beyond the wit of the business managers to have scheduled this debate for an occasion on which the Foreign Secretary was in London, as he is from time to time? Secondly, what would she have done if she had received a leaked copy of a report from a Select Committee?
Mrs. Beckett: This report is not about my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, as the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee made plain. The timing of the debate was geared to providing, as speedily as we reasonably could, an opportunity to debate the report and the unfortunate issue of my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross), who was criticised in the report and whose suspension was proposed by it. That was the main consideration behind the timing of the debate, and properly so.
The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe was strong in his criticisms, but not as strong as the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), who called on the Prime Minister to sack the Foreign Secretary and was also critical of the Prime Minister himself, as if the affair in some way involved him, which of course it does not. Therefore, it is right to remind the House, if only briefly, that the Government in no way, shape or form were the originator of the leak, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West made clear; that the Government made no use whatever of the leak, as has been made crystal clear--indeed, no hon. Member has even tried to allege that; and that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne said in his capacity as Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, the Government made no attempt, once they were in receipt of the leaked document, to use it to influence the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Wilshire:
The right hon. Lady is making much play of what the Government did not do, but can she tell
Mrs. Beckett:
No, I cannot. Indeed, I was not aware of that point, but there may be a simple explanation for it and I am sure that it will be made available to the hon. Gentleman.
Shona McIsaac:
My right hon. Friend may not have noticed, because it is only a tiny part of the minutes of evidence, but one official is quoted as saying that the documents ended up in the shredder.
Mrs. Beckett:
That unworthy thought had crossed my mind and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the matter clear.
In the course of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) understandably raised the issue of the interpretation that has been put on the briefing meeting he had--perfectly properly--with an incoming senior official in the Foreign Office, and how that has been reported.
In that context, there has also been some reference to my earlier intervention, in which I pointed out that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary had made available to the Select Committee information that was unprecedentedly full. Some play was made, by Liberal Democrat Members, by the hon. Member for Spelthorne and by the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery)--whose constituency is one that, since the last round of Boundary Commission changes, I fear that I have increasing difficulty in remembering--about the fact that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary did not rush forward, with a glad and eager heart, to offer access to any and every paper and telegram in the Foreign Office.
I do not consider that surprising in any way, shape or form. Indeed, my right hon. Friend would have been lacking in his duty if he had not thought that he ought to weigh very carefully what was certainly a very major precedent--some would call it a dangerous precedent--in terms of the information that he made available to the Select Committee.
In dialogue with each other, hon. Members then expressed confidence that the minute produced by Mr. Henderson after the briefing from my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East would have to be dragged out of the Foreign Office. That was intended to illustrate the lack of openness of the Foreign Secretary.
However, I have to disappoint those hon. Members. While we have been listening with eager attention to their observations, I have received a message from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, in which he states that he is entirely willing for that document to be released to the House. The document will, indeed, be made available.
Sir Peter Emery:
I congratulate the Leader of the House on her success in getting documents released. It is much greater than that achieved by the Foreign Affairs Committee.
However, I remind the right hon. Lady of a recommendation made by the Select Committee on Procedure way back in the 1990-91 Session. It was that it was beholden on Departments to make certain that they
made available to a Select Committee all documentation relevant to an inquiry being held by that Select Committee. The recommendation was made as a result of a Select Committee inquiry into Concorde, when the fact that not all the necessary documentation was made available to that Committee was referred to the Procedure Committee.
Mrs. Beckett:
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the investigation into the Concorde affair was held a considerable period of years ago. Nevertheless, although all Governments seek to provide Select Committees with the right information, some documents are held to be of such sensitivity that they should remain confidential within government. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman and other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee have confirmed that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary released unprecedented information.
I shall conclude with one of the earliest points made in this short, but stretching debate. Although no supporting evidence was produced, some Conservative Members stated that the alleged behaviour was typical of the Government's misuse of the House. The shadow Leader of the House prayed in aid of that argument the Government's use of the Government information service, the number of special advisers, and so on.
However, the allegations about the use of the information service have been repeatedly and clearly refuted. As to the special advisers, the Government considered that, as a matter of professionalism, it was right to employ more than were employed by the previous Administration, at least at the end of their term of office. We have also thought it right, again as a matter of professionalism, to treble the money made available to Opposition parties in the House, in order that they may more adequately carry out their duties. I have not noticed any acknowledgement that that rather runs counter to the suggestion that the Government in some way are trying to misuse and abuse Parliament.
My final point is to quote from the conventions for Governments responding to Select Committee reports. Those were drafted as long ago as 1990 and were set out in a letter from the then President of the Council, who I think was the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee. The passage that is particularly germane to this debate is that the document
Despite much that has been said in this debate, frankly, the substance of the complaints made by the Opposition are not borne out by the weight of the evidence on which they rest. This is a sufficiently serious and worrying matter in itself.
Like many other members who have spoken in the debate, I recognise the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West has done in the House and on foreign affairs, and I regret the circumstances that led to
his suspension from the House, although of course I respect the judgment of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, as do we all.
I fear that in an attempt to exploit a measured and sensible report, which warns us all about the proper respect for the work of Select Committees and clearly warns Government Departments and civil servants about future conduct, an attempt has been made to erect an edifice of criticism of the Government, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, which is not borne out. Frankly, the evidence will not bear it.
Question put:--
The House proceeded to a Division--
Jane Kennedy and Mr. Kevin Hughes were appointed Tellers for the Ayes; but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Madam Speaker declared that the Ayes had it.
Resolved,
"asserted the right of Ministers to respond publicly to criticisms of the Government as robustly as seemed appropriate; this would include criticisms in the Committee's Report itself, inaccuracy or mis-statement in media reporting, or public criticisms made by individual Committee members".
The advice continued:
"Ministers would feel free to respond immediately to recommendations",
where that was thought necessary.
That this House--
(i) approves the Eighth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges (HC 607); and
(ii) accordingly suspends Mr. Ernie Ross, Member for Dundee West, from the service of the House for ten sitting days.
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