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Mr. Straw: I was just about to come to that, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.
I set up a judicial inquiry, chaired by Sir William Macpherson, into the events surrounding the death of Stephen Lawrence. I hoped—and this was the family's wish—that the previous Government would set up such an inquiry, and we urged them to do so for five years. There was no reason for them not to do so, as plainly they were not to blame for what happened in Eltham that terrible April day. However, they failed to do so. When I made my decision, I was rightly supported by the then shadow Home Secretary and the House as a whole. I am grateful to the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) for prompting me, because if he looks at the 24 1921 Act inquiries carried out over the past 82 years, he will see that almost all of them have involved serious allegations of misconduct flowing from, or leading to, criminal investigations. Before it comes to conclusions about the utility of the Opposition's motion, the House needs to weigh up the fact that those inquiries have on average taken two years to publish their findings.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South): May I chide the Foreign Secretary a little for referring to evangelical requests? There may have been evangelistic pressure, but if it was evangelical it would be seeking truth. Instead, it was actually yielding to the terrorists who wanted to get at the British Army and security services in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Straw: I stand corrected by the hon. Gentleman about the difference between two words with a similar root.
Paul Flynn (Newport, West): Before the Foreign Secretary gets bogged down in the details of the inquiry, can he address the central objection to relying on two internal parliamentary Committees, whatever their merits? That objection concerns their independence. Every member of those two Committees took part in the
vote on going to war—a new experience for us. They cannot therefore be judged to be independent when they are asked to make a judgment on their own decisions. That is the main reason why the country will not be satisfied—there must be a group of people outside the House who are free of accusations about making that original decision.
Mr. Straw: That is an ingenious argument, using something that was welcomed across the House—the introduction of substantive motions for the decision to go to war—against the position that I am recommending to the House. The answer is clear. If that is the case, every single Select Committee will be disabled in every single inquiry that it ever undertakes. Moreover, my hon. Friend may not know members of the judiciary as well as some of us do. To my certain knowledge, the idea that a wide range of members of the judiciary did not have clear opinions about the decision to go to war is nonsense. I spoke to many of them in the run-up to the war. It was a matter of great controversy and interest. Some were in favour, others were against; none was indifferent.
The usual argument about the control and scrutiny of the intelligence and security services has been that there ought to be stronger parliamentary scrutiny of them through the establishment of a Select Committee, rather than by the ISC. My hon. Friend seems to be arguing that we should not have confidence in our own ability to scrutinise the work of Ministers. Finally, if my hon. Friend looks at those who sit on the ISC—I shall deal with the ISC in more detail in a moment—he will see that the distinguished members of that body cover a fairly wide range of opinion on military action. I am clear that they are capable, as their record shows, of reaching decisions that are independent and judicious.
Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South) rose—
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) rose—
Mr. Straw: I must make progress. I apologise.
That brings me to my second question: whether the membership, powers and practice of the Intelligence and Security Committee are sufficient to give the House and the general public an objective and informed picture of the role of intelligence in the run-up to military action. My answer is yes. The ISC was established by the Intelligence Services Act 1994 after years of concern that Parliament was not able to play a proper role in holding to account the intelligence and security agencies or the Ministers responsible for them. One of the concerns that I recall was that where there were serious questions about the agencies and the use of intelligence, Government had to resort to establishing one-off inquiries—as they had to with Franks inquiry on the Falklands, and to a degree, although there were also allegations of criminality, in respect of the Scott inquiry on arms to Iraq—because there was no standing machinery to do this, as there is in countries such as the United States and in other parliamentary democracies.
The debate in 1994 shows that although there was some questioning about the composition and powers of the ISC, the whole House welcomed its establishment. There was no vote against it. Over the years, the ISC has
shown that any initial concerns about it have been unfounded. With members drawn from both Houses and all main parties, the ISC has performed its function with distinction. Its reports on the Mitrokhin archive and the terrorist atrocity in Bali are models of their kind, and proof that the ISC is perfectly capable of independence of judgment. Its reports have included important recommendations that have helped the agencies and their supervising Ministers and Departments to improve their performance, and they have included strong criticisms of the Government. If the ISC finds fault with our performance during their current investigation, I expect to hear such criticism again.
Mr. John Maples (Stratford-on-Avon): The Foreign Secretary again uses the existence of the Intelligence and Security Committee, as he did in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee, as an excuse for not giving us access to documents and officials. Does he acknowledge that, when the ISC was set up, the then Foreign Secretary said that the existence of the Committee would not
- "truncate in any way the existing responsibilities of existing committees"?
Mr. Straw: No—and nor has the ISC truncated those responsibilities. The point about the ISC was that it filled a vacuum. There was no Committee for Parliament to supervise the intelligence and security agencies. The hon. Gentleman knows that, although there is some overlap between the work of the agencies or their product and the role of the FAC, the FAC's role is in respect of my responsibilities for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, not in respect of my responsibilities for the intelligence and security agencies. Parliament could have chosen to decide otherwise. As the Committee acknowledges, I am open to the argument that there should be a special Select Committee, but the current arrangements are those that Parliament decided.
Donald Anderson: Surely the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) is correct. The Government are cutting across the work of an existing Select Committee by their decision. I refer my right hon. Friend to paragraph 169 of the report, in which the Committee states:
- "We recommend that the Government accept the principle that it should be prepared to accede to requests from the Foreign Affairs Committee for access to intelligence, when the Committee can demonstrate that it is of key importance to a specific inquiry it is conducting and unless there are genuine concerns for national security."
Mr. Straw: My right hon. Friend will acknowledge that I provided a considerable degree of relevant intelligence. Moreover—this is a matter for the House, not for me—my right hon. Friend must acknowledge that there is an issue here of the boundaries of responsibilities of the FAC and the ISC. I am glad to see the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick
Cormack) acknowledge that. It is true. It is wrong for my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East and others to seek to embroil me or Ministers in what is essentially an issue for Parliament.The crucial thing is that we are fully accountable in respect of foreign policy and the work of the agencies to those two bodies established by Parliament, one a Select Committee, the other established by statute. Furthermore, as I suggested to my right hon. Friend when I gave evidence, and as I believe is happening, there is a good case for the two Committees to work in co-operation—for example, as I know from my visit to the ISC yesterday, the FAC provided the ISC with the full transcript of the evidence that I gave in private to the FAC so that I could be further interrogated by that body.
The House may be wondering why no member of the ISC is present for this debate. The answer is that members of that Committee are in the middle of their inquiry, which they initiated on 8 May. The Prime Minister and I gave evidence to the Committee yesterday. Other Ministers and senior officials will also be cross-examined.
The Conservatives established the ISC, and when it has suited the right hon. Member for Devizes, he has been fulsome in his praise for the Committee and its work, as he was in the case of Bali and as he was just two weeks ago in the debate on the ISC's annual report on 3 July. So I find it astonishing that there is no mention of the work of that Committee, which was set up by the Government of which I think he was a member in 1994. Still less did he mention the ISC at any stage in his speech. That is astonishing, and the approach is insulting to all members of the Committee, including distinguished members from his own party—the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates) and the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot). It is insulting, too, to Lord King, who chaired that Committee with distinction for many years and who was one of those who were able to build up its reputation and methods of operation.
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