Formal Meetings
5. The Committee held 48 formal meetings, at 34 of
which evidence was taken. On one of these occasions evidence was
taken partly in private.[2]
24 evidence sessions were televised.
6. We took evidence from the Rt Hon George Robertson
MP, Secretary of State for Defence on four occasions,[3]
from Mr John Reid MP, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces
on three occasions,[4]
and Rt Hon Lord Gilbert, the Minister for Defence Procurement
on three occasions.[5]
We also took evidence from Rt Hon Clare Short MP, the Secretary
of State for International Development[6]
and from Mr Tony Lloyd MP, Minister of State at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office on three occasions.[7]
Despite invitations to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
to give evidence to us on both NATO enlargement and the Strategic
Defence Review, he was unable to find time to do so. While we
were grateful for the Minister of State giving his time to the
Committee, we particularly regret that the Foreign Secretary did
not seize the opportunity to give evidence on the Strategic Defence
Review (SDR), which on many occasions was declared to be "foreign
policy led". The Treasury Chief Secretary also declined an
invitation to give evidence to us putting the SDR into the context
of the Comprehensive Spending Review—an omission which we
particularly regretted since the balance of priorities in spending
between the different activities of government in the promotion
of its overall security policy lay at the heart of the SDR's outcome.
7. While, in the case of the Chief Secretary, we
appreciate that he must avoid laying himself open to regular appearances
before each and every departmental select committee, and while
we accept that the Secretary of State for Defence speaks on behalf
of the government as a whole,[8]
we urge that Ministers should make a presumption of accepting
invitations to appear before Committees overlooking departments
other than their own in response to reasonable and well-founded
requests. A recent joint appearance by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
and the Secretary of State for International Development before
the International Development Committee[9]
to give evidence on debt relief shows that this can be effective
at the highest level of government. The Prime Minister is reported
recently to have called for "joined-up government".
Scrutiny of joined-up government will require a joined-up Parliament,
and the government must be prepared to facilitate this.
8. In what we believe to be a distinct new departure
in select committee activities, we also took evidence on two occasions
from Ministers in foreign governments. On 19 January 1998, jointly
with the Foreign Affairs Committee, we took evidence from Dr Gyula
Horn, the Prime Minister of Hungary and Mr László
Kovács, his Foreign Minister. We believe this to be the
first occasion, certainly in living memory, on which a Head of
Government of an independent state has given evidence to a Committee
of the House. On 11 February 1998, we also took evidence from
Dr Janusz Onyszkiewicz, the Minister of National Defence of the
Republic of Poland. We hope to extend this international dimension
of the work of select committees, and have already in the current
session taken evidence from the Foreign Minister of Slovakia,[10]
and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bulgarian
Chamber of Deputies.[11]
9. Other witnesses included 46 appearances by officials
of the MoD, including 16 by serving officers. A full list of witnesses
appears as Annex A. The Committee has deliberately sought to extend
the range of witnesses from whom evidence is taken beyond the
defence establishment, and we hope to build further on this aspect
of our work.
2 Thursday 23 July, morning sitting, evidence from Mr
Tony Lloyd MP, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Back
3 30
July 1997, 14 January 1998, 13 July 1998, 23 July 1998 Back
4 29
July 1997, 4 March 1998, 22 July 1998 Back
5 11
March 1998, 30 April 1998, 16 July 1998 Back
6 11
February 1998 Back
7 18
February 1998, 8 April 1998, 23 July 1998 Back
8 HC
138-III, Q 1566 Back
9 See
Third Report from the International Development Committee, Session
1997-98, Debt Relief, HC 563 Back
10 27
January 1999 Back
11 16
February 1999 Back
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