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Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire): Has my right hon. Friend given any thought to why, when Mr. Andrew Gilligan first made his accusations on the media, which was some weeks before the Foreign Affairs Committee investigated the matter, 10 Downing street and Mr. Alastair Campbell did not complain immediately? Instead, Mr. Campbell seemed to wait until he appeared before the Committee. Surely that is another example of the way in which the Government set up smokescreens.
Mr. Ancram: That is precisely why I thought that there was a smokescreen. There had been no earlier complaint about the report on the "Today" programme and no complaint was made about a report on "Newsnight", which was produced independently of the investigation that gave rise to the story on the "Today" programme. The Government have never complained about the "Newsnight" report although it made precisely the same allegations as Mr. Gilligan.
Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central): Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that Downing street and Alastair Campbell refuted the story on the morning of 29 May? Downing street issued a denial within an hour of the broadcast of the report on the radio.
Mr. Ancram: I am still puzzled about why Downing street did not issue a denial after the "Newsnight" report. The report contained exactly the same allegations, although they were made by a different journalist. I have been in politics for a long time and when I see a cloud of smoke going up, I reckon that I can tell whether it is a smokescreen or an explosion.
The most damaging element of the whole affair relates to the so-called dodgy dossier that was published on 3 February 2003. As we know, it was largely composed of a relatively old PhD thesis that had been published on the internet and, to use the jargon, cut and pasted. That made it dodgy but not necessarily wrong. What was wrong was that the Prime Minister told Parliament that it was "further intelligence" when it was not. What was wrong was that the dossier was not a product of the intelligence services but of a committee chaired by Alastair Campbell. What was wrong was that it was taken for what it was not. The Foreign Affairs Committee rightly reported:
- "By producing such a document the Government undermined the credibility of their case for war".
Mr. Ancram: I shall address that point directly in a few moments because it is important.
The Government's production of the document was not the only thing that undermined the credibility of their case for war. We now know that the Prime Minister, albeit inadvertently, misled Parliament, for which he has neither apologised nor explained himself. When challenged, he said that he did not know the document's full provenance. He said that he did not know that it was not an intelligence document when he spoke about it in the House. Apparently, the Foreign Secretary did not know that either because he said the other day that he did not know that the document was not an intelligence document for more than three days, although his Department is the sponsoring Ministry for MI6. So it is all right as long as one does not know.
It is all right, perhaps, for those of us who have no reason to know, but the people who did not know are not ordinary people or Back Benchers—they are the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. Are we really to believe that they did not know? It beggars belief. They run the Government. They are supposed to be running the country. Why did they not know? Why were they not told by Alastair Campbell? In any event, what on earth was he doing chairing an intelligence assessment committee? The arch-manipulator of the truth was in charge of assessing the truth of intelligence. There is an irony in that. We can only assume that Mr. Campbell was operating on a need-to-know basis and that, in his view, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary did not need to know.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): Is it not even more mysterious that in Prime Minister's questions last week, when the Prime Minister knew that the overwhelming part of the dossier was not intelligence based, he still asserted:
- "I am afraid that I do not accept that Parliament was misled in any way at all."—[Official Report, 9 July 2003; Vol. 408, c. 1151.]?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must withdraw that remark. "Deliberately" and "misleading" are not what I expect to hear from him.
Dr. Lewis: At your request, Mr. Speaker, I, of course, withdraw the remark. I only wish I could think of another way of making the same point that would be acceptable to you.
Mr. Ancram: My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have listened to the Prime Minister and I think that he believes that an inadvertent misrepresentation of status to the House of Commons is not misleading. I am not accusing him of deliberately misleading, but if one says something that is wrong and people believe it, one has misled. I am prepared to accept, as I said, that he did not know that he was misleading. My charge against him is why on earth did he not know? If he were doing his job properly, he would have known. If this were fiction, our review of the book would be that it was unbelievable.
Some will ask whether the dodgy dossier really matters. The fact that the Prime Minister misrepresented its provenance goes to the heart of the trust that Parliament can put in what he tells it is, or is not, intelligence. His failure to acknowledge that leaves an enormous question mark hanging over anything that he in future tells the House is, or is not, intelligence. He has squandered his trustworthiness and is doing little to retrieve it.
The erosion of public confidence is gathering pace and beginning to damage the national interest. Opposition Members do not believe that the issue should be allowed to drift on into the autumn. If Labour Members think that the coming recess is a beach to a drowning man, they will find when they get there that the beach is a mirage.
There is an urgent unanswerable case for the Government to set up an independent judicial inquiry into what is now a matter of urgent public importance. It could be asked to report within six months, require the attendance of witnesses who could be examined on oath and compel the production of documents. It could get to the bottom of this murky pool, establish the truth and re-establish public confidence.
Donald Anderson (Swansea, East): The right hon. Gentleman says that the matter should not be allowed to drag on into the autumn. I remind him that the Scott inquiry took 18 months. I can imagine the shouts of horror if an artificial timetable of six months were imposed on a judge, who would say that he could not complete it within that time.
Mr. Ancram: If the Government acknowledge the public concern and set up a judicial inquiry to reassure them, they could bring the discussion to an end. It may be against my party political interests to do that, but at least it would be in the national interest.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): Does my right hon. Friend think that any such inquiry would seriously undermine what the Prime Minister told the House on 18 March?
Mr. Ancram: I hope that it would not. We backed the Prime Minister on 18 March because we believed that he was acting in the national interest. We need to get to the truth of the matter, rather than the half-statements and half-truths that we have heard so often in response to recent allegations. By doing that, we will restore confidence in the Prime Minister's ability to talk about
intelligence matters to the House of Commons and restore confidence in intelligence itself. Both of those have been damaged by what has gone on.
Mr. McLoughlin: If the Government complain about six months for an inquiry, may I remind my right hon. Friend of what Mr. Michael Foot said about setting up an inquiry? He stated:
- "If there is any difference in emphasis between me and the right hon. Lady about the way in which"
- "it is on timing. I do not believe that the inquiry need take six months. I believe that"
- "considerably more speedily".—[Official Report, 8 July 1982; Vol. 27, c. 477.]
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