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Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. I was not aware of it and he makes a useful point.
The real problem is that the matter is a mess. It is a mess of the Government's own making. Through incomplete information, unattributable briefings, half-truths and pathetic smokescreens, they have brought about a failure of confidence, a collapse of trust in the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Government, and a serious undermining of public confidence in British intelligence.
I will not lose sleep over the loss of trust in the Prime Minister and his Government. In my book, that was never high, but failure of confidence in intelligence is serious. Lack of trust when the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary bring intelligence material to the House is serious, too. The situation cannot be allowed to drift. An independent judicial inquiry should be set up now. That would be the right thing for the Government to do. It is the responsible thing for the Government to do. It is in the public interest. I commend the motion to the House.
1.7 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw) : I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
- "welcomes the Ninth Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Decision to go to War in Iraq, Session 2002–03, HC 813; notes that substantial oral and written evidence, by and on behalf of the Government, was provided to the Committee; believes that the Intelligence and Security Committee, established by Parliament by statute, is the appropriate body to consider the intelligence relating to Iraq; and notes that this Committee has already begun its inquiry."
The demand for a judicial inquiry stems from accusations that the Government may have misrepresented or exaggerated intelligence. I think that that was the point that the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) made, although it was not always clear. Let me reiterate that the Government stand by the judgments reached in the dossier published on 24 September and, in respect of the accuracy, of the contents of the briefing paper that we issued on 3 February this year.
We welcomed the Foreign Affairs Committee's decision on 3 June to conduct the inquiry. I note that the Opposition also welcome it in the motion, but another element of the motion is frankly disingenuous—namely, the implication that the Foreign Affairs Committee had to pursue its investigation within time constraints dictated by the Government. It is not the place of any Government to seek to influence the time scale of any Select Committee inquiry, nor did we do so. The deadline of 7 July for the publication of the Committee's report was determined by the Committee alone. Moreover, as everyone knows, it continues to take evidence and has sought further material from me in the past two days. As the Committee records, it took evidence from a number of sources. I spent more than five hours before the Committee, including a private session where I disclosed sensitive details relating to the Government's intelligence on Iraq. On each occasion, senior officials from my Department joined me, including the permanent secretary, Sir Michael Jay, and the political director, Peter Ricketts. My office sent the Committee substantial written evidence, including, on 19 June, a comprehensive memorandum setting out the main political and diplomatic developments in the months preceding military action.
We will of course respond in writing to the FAC's report and recommendations within the standard two-month period, as well as meeting much earlier deadlines set by the FAC for further and better information. However, I hope that some of the FAC's conclusions will lend perspective to today's debate. Although Committee members split 6–4 on the last part of recommendation 14, repeated in paragraph 86, that
- "allegations of politically inspired meddling cannot credibly be established",
- "were in all probability well founded on the basis of the intelligence then available".
Mr. Straw: I have said on the record that in our judgment the FAC is not the appropriate body to see all the intelligence. That job, the House and Parliament have decided, is for the Intelligence and Security Committee. That is a matter of fact, and I do not want get involved in another matter of fact—the gentle tussle between the FAC and the ISC. However, I would tell the
hon. and learned Gentleman—I am happy to be corrected, but I think that this is true—that I have gone further in seeking to provide evidence directly from intelligence than most Ministers have gone in the past. I shall continue to do so, and I regard it as my duty to be responsible to the House and its Select Committees—as I am—as well as to the Intelligence and Security Committee.I shall now deal with the key issue of a judicial inquiry raised by the right hon. Member for Devizes. The original motion tabled in the middle of June by the Leader of the Opposition called for a judicial inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. An inquiry under the 1921 Act is established to investigate a
- "definite matter . . . of urgent importance."
- "minimise the risk of injustice to individuals",
The motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition in June called for an inquiry to be completed in six months. The right hon. Member for Devizes referred to that today, but I have to tell the House and him—and he should know this—that if a senior member of the judiciary is asked to conduct an independent inquiry, he will exercise independence on timing as much as on content. If he is not allowed sufficient time, justice cannot be done or be seen to be done. I should like to correct a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), who underestimated the time taken by the Scott inquiry. That inquiry was established in 16 November 1992 and did not report until February 1996. A similar time scale would take any inquiry in this Parliament beyond the final date for a general election, and that is in no one's interest.
Moreover, it is quite wrong to assume that independent judicial inquiries, whether established under the 1921 Act or not, automatically bring the issues to a close. Sometimes they do not, and I ask the House to take full note of that. In 1972, an independent judicial inquiry into Bloody Sunday was set up under the 1921 Act by the then Prime Minister Edward Heath, under a most distinguished senior member of the judiciary at the time, Lord Chief Justice Widgery. However, his report did not close the issue to the satisfaction of all the parties. There was continuing criticism of his independence and judiciousness, notwithstanding his distinguished reputation, which led many years later to
the establishment of the latest independent judicial inquiry into Bloody Sunday, the length of which has far exceeded the length of the Scott inquiry. It is now in its fifth year and has cost £100 million.
Sir Patrick Cormack: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that setting up that inquiry was as profound a mistake as the setting up of any inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq would be?
Mr. Straw: My lips are sealed on the setting up of the first one. However, as I said, it is now in its fifth year, and some people who were evangelical in their support for it may now be questioning its utility.
Mr. McLoughlin: If the Foreign Secretary is to have credibility, can he explain to the House why, when the Government were first elected, they were so keen to set up not just the Bloody Sunday inquiry but a number of inquiries into the actions of the previous Government, whereas they are now reluctant to have any inquiries into their own actions?
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