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Mr. Hain: This contribution from the Conservative Benches is getting to sound like a rather scratchy old
gramophone record. Let us look at the facts. The Prime Minister said yesterday that the briefing given to the Leader of the Opposition was based on intelligence. That is what he said: the very same intelligence that had gone into those two documents. The Leader of the Opposition should come clean. He should say whether he is disputing any of that intelligence, because he did not dispute it at the time. Indeed, he supported the Government's policy at the time. Now, however, he sees a chance to make mischief opportunistically, and he continually seeks to do so, with the support of the hon. Gentleman.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate): In the light of the previous answers from the Leader of the House, is it still the Government's position that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be found? Is he categorically denying the reports running on the BBC today that the Government are now saying that such weapons will not be found, either because they were destroyed before the war began or because they have been hidden? Surely we should have a debate on the issue in the House. It would not be some arcane parliamentary debate; people died on the decisions that the House made based on reports that the Government had given not only on the size of the weapons of mass destruction arsenal but on Saddam Hussein's capacity to launch them within 45 minutes.
Mr. Hain: I am sorry that my hon. Friend is relying on BBC spin rather than on the evidence. The truth is that the Foreign Affairs Committee report upheld the Prime Minister's record on this matter. The truth is that those like myself—I was in the Foreign Office as the Minister with responsibility for Iraq, then Minister for Europe, and subsequently a Cabinet Minister—who saw the raw intelligence and were briefed by the Joint Intelligence Committee and other senior intelligence sources were absolutely clear that there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction. That evidence was underpinned by United Nations inspections reports that my hon. Friend has never really accepted. That was the basis for our action. I would have thought that we ought now to put that behind us and seek to work together internationally to make sure that Iraq goes into a new democratic future, having been liberated from such a brutal dictator.
Pete Wishart (North Tayside): Surely it is now imperative that we have a statement from the Prime Minister on the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction, especially after senior Whitehall sources—I note that the Leader of the House did not contradict them—suggested that we would never find these weapons of mass destruction. I know that the Prime Minister has appeared before the Liaison Committee, but only the three main parties are represented on it. Does not the whole House deserve an explanation and does not the whole nation, through the House, deserve to know what is going on with WMD?
Mr. Hain: I do not know whether BBC sources these days are dodgy or not; I really do not, and I do not think the public know. If the hon. Gentleman is asking what I and the Prime Minister believe, the answer is that we believe that evidence of weapons of mass destruction
will be found. I would be very surprised if it was not. As I have said before, Iraq is a huge country and we know, and we knew at the time from intelligence, that Saddam Hussein was dispersing these weapons of mass destruction for months before he anticipated the weapons inspectors would come in. It is not surprising that they are not in a shop window somewhere for us to go and find. That would be astonishing.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle): May I echo the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) about post office closures? We are witnessing an incredible shrinkage of the post office branch network. In my constituency, people have been absolutely bewildered this week at the news that five branch offices are due to close. It is an important issue and we should hear from Ministers in the Department of Trade and Industry about the discussions that they are having with the Post Office to maintain this valued national institution of a post office branch network.
Mr. Hain: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. All of us as local Members of Parliament value local post offices and the local communities that they serve value them even more. The picture that he paints is a very serious one and I shall bring it to the attention of the relevant Minister and Secretary of State as soon as I can, so that any action can then follow.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Only a few Members are standing, but I must have brief questions if I am to call them all before half-past the hour.
Tony Baldry (Banbury): The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee that he would not have committed UK troops to war in Iraq if he had not won the vote in the House of Commons. It is reasonable to infer that many Members supported him in the Division Lobby because they believed that there were weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed within 45 minutes. If they knew then what they know now, many Members might well have not supported the Prime Minister in the Division Lobby.
Is it not despicable that the Prime Minister should come to the Liaison Committee and do Prime Minister's questions and, almost immediately after, Government spokesmen put out another spin on the story—that weapons of mass destruction may never be discovered? It is doubly despicable that the Leader of the House should then come to the Chamber and seek to blame the BBC for fabricating that story. Can we have a debate next week not necessarily on Iraq, but on the whole Government machinery of—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I call the Leader of the House.
Mr. Hain: Just for the record, I did not blame the BBC's political editor. In fact, I commended the quote that he gave on either the 10 o'clock news or the "Today" programme this morning. I blamed BBC spin—and indeed, that spin was directly contradicted, as I understand it, by the Prime Minister's official
spokesman in the Lobby briefing this morning, in which he said that the Prime Minister and the Government remain confident that evidence will be found.I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman, along with opponents of our action, wants to airbrush out of history the fact that United Nations reports consistently reported evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Our own intelligence services—as I have seen for myself—reported that evidence as well. He should be standing by those reports and standing by the intelligence services, and not seeking to undermine them.
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): My right hon. Friend will be aware that I have a high proportion of private rented sector dwellings in my constituency to cater for the needs of students. I welcome very much the excellent pilots that the Government carried out on the tenancy deposit protection scheme. However, I am disappointed that there is no forthcoming mention of that in the draft Housing Bill. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is an important issue that needs to be pushed forward? Will he make representations to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State?
Mr. Hain: I understand my hon. Friend's concerns and the important points that she makes. I will certainly draw them to the attention of the Secretary of State.
Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell): I join other colleagues in calling on the Leader of the House to arrange for the Prime Minister to come to the Dispatch Box next week to explain the allegations that he made against my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. Will the Leader of the House confirm that my right hon. Friend met the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee on 12 February, which was nine days after the dossier was published? Yes or no?
Mr. Hain: The Prime Minister wrote yesterday to the Leader of the Opposition setting out very clearly—[Interruption.] He did, indeed. He made it absolutely clear that the evidence upon which the Leader of the Opposition was briefed was the same evidence that went into the documents concerned. It has been the same evidence that formed the basis of the approach to conflict and that we relied upon. Again, I directly ask the right hon. Gentleman, if not the Leader of the Opposition, whether he is disputing the intelligence services' evidence. Is he—yes or no? As for the Prime Minister answering questions, he will be here on Wednesday to answer the questions that anybody wants to put to him.
Mr. Michael Connarty (Falkirk, East): Can the Leader of the House organise for a statement to be made to the House following the publication by her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons of the report on the two remaining detention, or what I think are called removal, centres for immigrants, including Dungavel in Scotland? Is my right hon. Friend aware that, when the chief inspector published in April her review of the three centres that she had visited, she said that no child should be kept in such places—that applied to all five of them—for more than six days? Does he not think it ironic that while he is talking today about the children's Minister,
something that I fully support, the children of the Ay family will have spent a year in detention in Dungavel come next week? Can he arrange for that to be debated on the Floor of the House as soon as possible?
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