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6.17 pm

Mr. William Cash (Stone): I am glad to follow the robust speech that we have just heard with regard to the question of whether we made the right decision at the time of the vote on the war. I want to make it clear from the outset that our call for a judicial inquiry, and the comments that I will make with respect to the Attorney-General's role and the legal advice, is without prejudice to the fact that we in no way resile from our support for the war for the right reasons.

It does not follow that the reasons that were given by the Government are necessarily the reasons that we had. Perhaps the Government have been somewhat presumptuous in making that assumption. The reality, however, is that the motion demands a judicial inquiry. What I find astonishing, having observed Labour Back

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Benchers' manoeuvrings this evening and this afternoon, is that they all seem to have had one main gear—move forward. They are determined to make it clear that they do not want a judicial inquiry, although 130 of them, if I have my figures more or less right, felt that it was a matter of such important principle that they rebelled against their own Government. Because of the idea of moving forward, despite the many unresolved questions, including serious constitutional and legal questions, and the consequences flowing from that, they have gone into a collective funk.

Mr. Reed: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that those of us who opposed the war do not wish to move forward just for the sake of it but disagree fundamentally, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) said, that a judicial review would be beneficial at this stage and would achieve anything more than further nit-picking. The fundamental issues of why we opposed the war still stand, and we should raise them. There have been plenty of arguments this afternoon from both the Labour Benches and the Opposition Benches that clearly state why we should not have gone to war, but those cases have been made forcefully in the House, which is the proper place for that to happen.

Mr. Cash: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have enormous respect for him. We worked together on a number of things in the past and the not-so-distant past, and I can only say that I simply do not buy his argument. We have heard accusations of opportunism and the word "meretricious" has been used about our motion. I shall explain why it is important to have a judicial inquiry and I shall also consider the role of the Attorney-General.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary said, problems arise largely because there is still a residual problem of confusion and suspicion. There has been a constant stream of serious and damaging charges both during and after the conduct of the war, and they have been damaging to the United Kingdom. Let us leave aside party politics, because the reality is that a stream of charges that must be properly answered has undoubtedly damaged the national interest.

The reasons for a judicial inquiry are quite simple and they are set out in the motion before the House and in the other motion that has been permanently on the Order Paper. They simply come down to the fact that there have been an enormous number of contradictions and misleading statements. We even have a situation in which very senior Cabinet Ministers—members of the War Cabinet, a point that has not been brought out today—have accused one another of contradictions and misleading statements.

I have an article that was written by the entirely absent former Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short). She has not even attended the debate despite the extent to which she was intimately involved in all these matters. The article appeared in the New Statesman on 9 June 2003 under the headline "How

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the Prime Minister deceived us". The right hon. Lady says:

"Yet the drums of war beat louder. There was mounting worry in Whitehall about the legality of war. We had no advice from the Attorney General. Officials had informed me that Foreign Office lawyers had disagreed about the legality and that, as became public, one had resigned."

The fact is that the right hon. Lady ultimately accepted the advice of the Attorney-General, and I want to put it on the record that I too agree with what he said in his opinion. It is ably reinforced by an extremely good article today by Professor Greenwood, who set outs with the benefit of hindsight, as well as the law and the facts as they have developed, that the war was legitimate and legal at that time and remains so. I do not need to go into the arguments; they are there for people to read.

When the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood resigned, she said in her letter to the Prime Minister:

"I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached."

There are therefore two separate questions with which there are serious problems.

The first is the issue of the facts in relation to the September dossier and the question of whether the instructions to the Attorney-General were based on absolutely accurate information and therefore whether he was in possession of all the facts. The other question relates to the former Secretary of State for International Development and refers to the aftermath and the occupation of Iraq. As far as I can remember, that point has not really been raised today, but it was the subject of the right hon. Lady's resignation letter and the article in which she said that the Prime Minister had deceived her.

I would have thought that those questions create serious problems for Parliament, let alone for the Government. They raise matters of considerable importance. It is quite clear that we shall not get at the truth when there are such contradictions in the accounts of senior Ministers who were in the know. They were in the War Cabinet, so there must be a way of elevating the argument to an arena in which the truth may be established.

Many proper tributes have been paid to the Hutton inquiry, from which an enormous amount of extremely important information has come. It has been said that although we do not know the inquiry's results, the Government had the confidence to set it up. That was the right thing to do—they were doing the right thing for the right reason. However, in practice, they have given no indication that they would be prepared for the two issues on which the Attorney-General's advice was requested to be examined properly. I admit that the matter was considered by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is not a Select Committee because it was set up under the Intelligence Services Act 1994. However, both Committees' procedures have inherent difficulties. I shall not criticise members of the Committees and I do not have time to analyse the composition, power and procedures of the Committees.

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However, the Committees do not lend themselves to dealing with the serious problems that lie at the heart of the questions that the House is considering.

Some people seem to have forgotten the extraordinary fact that although the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), who is not in the Chamber, resigned over the war to the applause of Back Benchers, he made an unequivocal statement on the no-fly zone on 18 December 1998. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office website carried an interview with the right hon. Gentleman—the then Foreign Secretary—who said:

"we are absolutely clear that we have thorough clear backing in UN resolutions . . . Last February Saddam was warned in the Security Council resolution that there would be the severest consequences"—

note those words—

"if he broke his undertakings."

It is astonishing that the then Foreign Secretary could take that view, presumably on the basis of advice from the Foreign Office and, almost certainly, the Attorney-General, yet consider it necessary to resign a few years later. I do not criticise him for taking a decision on a point of principle, but there is no doubt that his position on legal advice in 1998 does not fit easily with his decision to resign.

I want to talk about the Attorney-General and the question of confidentiality. Over and over again, Ministers have refused to give the legal basis for the Government's decisions. I am pleased to recall that the Government made available a summary of the Attorney-General's opinion, and I was somewhat responsible for that because I tabled a question to the Prime Minister on Friday 14 March. The question was as follows:

"To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the legal basis for military intervention against Iraq."

The answer said:

"There is a longstanding convention, followed by successive Governments and reflected in the ministerial code, that legal advice to the Government remains confidential. This enables Government to obtain frank and full legal advice in confidence, as everyone else can."—[Official Report, 14 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 482W.]

It is clear that the Government intended to give the impression that the information was going to be full and frank, but it would have been far better if they had provided the House with the full opinion. Even now, that full opinion should be made available to us and the public at large.

Mr. Llwyd : I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Is he aware that the ministerial code allows the Government to use their discretion to provide the document in full? That would not breach the code and it is imperative that it is done.

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