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Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con): Does the right hon. Lady think that, even for charity, it was

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appropriate, the day after the publication of what was effectively Dr. Kelly's obituary, for Mr. Campbell to sell signed copies of the report?

Joyce Quin: I am not commenting on any of the reactions of people who were mentioned in the report. I am referring only to some of the disgraceful headlines in the press, which do not do their writers any credit.

A number of surveys have concluded that people do not believe the findings of the Hutton report, but I believe that it is dishonest and unacceptable to conduct instant surveys, when the respondents are unlikely even to have seen a copy of the report, and would not have had time to read it. Indeed, how many of us can claim to have read and fully digested every word? Conducting surveys in such circumstances is another vivid example of how superficial and wild the response to the report has been.

Like other hon. Members, I strongly defend a free press and believe in fearless investigative journalism, but such journalism should be accurate, and not based on unchecked and unsubstantiated information. On the BBC, I regret the fact that Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke resigned, and I am far less interested in resignations than in efforts to improve the accuracy of reporting. Improved journalistic standards, rather than finding scapegoats, would be the ideal consequence of the Hutton report.

On the new inquiry that the Government announced yesterday, I was pleased that my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister said that their preference would have been for the all-party Intelligence and Security Committee to undertake further work. I regret strongly the fact that neither the Conservative party nor the Liberal Democrats have sufficient faith in their own parliamentary colleagues, and that the Conservatives in particular pressed for a committee that is already being perceived in the press as more pro-establishment in its composition than a cross-party Committee of parliamentarians.

I am also not convinced that we needed to follow the example of the inquiry announced by President Bush. The situation in the United States is different, and in particular, unlike the ISC, the US congressional intelligence committees have failed to achieve a common view and have split on party lines. Indeed, electoral considerations have played a huge and unhelpful part in the deliberations in the United States.

The committee that we have set up will have some real issues to consider, arising both from earlier reports and from the findings of the Iraq survey group. I wish it well, but, whatever its findings, it cannot change the reality that the decision to go to war was based on a political judgment—openly debated, and about which there will always be controversy—just as the decision to take military action on numerous other occasions has been.

3.2 pm

Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) (Con): I shall not reopen the issue of whether the House was right to decide to take this country to war—a decision that I completely support, for the reasons that the Prime Minister outlined earlier today—nor question the conclusions of Lord Hutton's inquiry, as far as they go, within its limited remit, but that does not preclude any

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Member of Parliament questioning the veracity of the intelligence presented to the Government and the way in which that intelligence was used.

I welcome the inquiry that has been set up. It needs to get to the truth about what intelligence we had and whether it was accurate. It needs to restore public confidence both in the intelligence services, which I personally have great faith in and to which I pay tribute, and in the way in which politicians use that intelligence in order to make a case for a particular course of action.

This is where I differ from the Government, because I do not believe that the Hutton inquiry has exonerated or acquitted them on some of the issues that arise concerning the interface between the intelligence service and the politicians. Paragraph 467(1)(viii) of the inquiry conclusions says:


I fully accept that the Government have been acquitted of the charge of using intelligence dishonestly, but on the alternative definition of "sexed up" Lord Hutton states that


David Cairns (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab): Read on.

Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman wants me to say that Mr. Gilligan's allegations were not proved, which I accept, but it is incumbent on the hon. Gentleman to accept that there is an issue. A new situation arose with the publication of the dossier. Never before has a decision of such importance been based on published evidence from the security services. The relationship between politicians and the intelligence services will form an important part of the inquiry that has just been established and must fall within its remit.

I attended some of the evidence sessions of the Hutton inquiry. I watched John Scarlett give his presentation and suffer cross-examination by Mr. Dingemans and Lord Hutton. I have no reason to question John Scarlett's integrity or ability, but it was clear to me from the evidence that he presented and the evidence with which he was confronted that at the time when the dossier was produced he was under intense pressure and subject to many competing claims on his attention and judgment, and I shall give two examples of that.

First, there were competing memorandums—some from Alastair Campbell and some from the defence intelligence services. Some of them said "take out 'maybe' and put 'certainly'"; others said "take out 'certainly' and put 'maybe'". The idea that the defence intelligence services were giving substantive advice about the content of the document but Alastair Campbell was simply helping to present the information is a distinction that became blurred. It cannot possibly be said that under those circumstances it was easy for John Scarlett to make the judgment that he had to make. That is why the matter must be studied by the inquiry.

Secondly, I shall go further and give the House completely new information. Two weeks before the dossier was published, the International Institute for Strategic Studies produced a dossier about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. As shadow Secretary of State for Defence, I attended a private

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briefing with the IISS at which I learned that it had been summoned to No. 10 to give a presentation about its document. It had been told that there was concern that its document had stolen the thunder from the forthcoming publication of the Government document.

The evidence presented to the Hutton inquiry included information on the frantic search for any new information. The Joint Intelligence Committee was being put under pressure to come up with something new and sensational—my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) referred to the headline that Alastair Campbell wanted so badly to make the case for war. The relationship and procedures between the intelligence services and politicians must be reviewed by the inquiry. I am pleased to say that the inquiry undoubtedly covers that relationship because my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has amended its terms of reference to include discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the Government before the conflict.

I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for Defence, who has been through a difficult time and must have had some sleepless nights questioning whether he did everything right under the circumstances. I am pleased that he has been acquitted by the Hutton inquiry of any wrongdoing. That is a good thing for politics and a good thing for politicians in general. In turn, I hope that he will have the generosity to acknowledge that public confidence in the relationship between politicians and the intelligence services is a real issue. If we want the public to believe that published intelligence information is intelligence and not propaganda, we must be able to answer the question, "At what stage does intelligence become propaganda when it is in the hands of the spin doctors and politicians?"

3.10 pm

Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): I issued a statement when Dr. Kelly died, and I shall repeat it to the House:


Immediately after Dr. Kelly's death, a Sunday paper reprinted that statement and added, "And then Mackinlay went into hiding". I did not go into hiding, but I did not want to talk to the Sunday papers because I took the view, which was manifestly obvious out of courtesy and common sense, "The less said the better, let Lord Hutton fulfil and discharge his duties, and let us have regard to a grieving family." On the Saturday when we learned about Dr. Kelly's death, my wife and I were appalled that a Sunday paper approached us to offer me money to comment. We have kept our counsel about that, but it was the case. I want to place on record how disgusted I was by that approach.

What was the Foreign Affairs Committee doing last summer? We were trying to discharge our duty to Parliament to examine whether the Government exaggerated the case that they presented to Parliament and the people for going to war. We tried to discharge that duty as best we could, but our report to House states that we felt that we were frustrated in fulfilling that duty—that is not only my view, but that of the Committee.

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I hope that the Prime Minister will reflect on the point that Lord Hutton cross-examined John Scarlett in public, but the Foreign Affairs Committee was refused access to him. When we requested the drafts of the September dossier, we were refused them; Lord Hutton has put them on the worldwide web. If the Prime Minister had said, "You can have John Scarlett in secret," we would have compromised. If he had said, "The documents will be written on rice paper and you must eat them afterwards," we would have compromised, too. There is a lesson about the capacity of the Government to respond to reasonable requests from parliamentary Committees, and I hope that that will be picked up as a serious point, despite the levity with which I introduced it.

There is an obsession with secrecy in this country. One thing that irritates me—the Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor) touched on this—is the interface between journalists and the security and intelligence services. In submission to Lord Hutton, I said that the security and intelligence services speak to journalists all the time. The people they will not speak to are politicians. That situation is surely unacceptable. I do not mind the security and intelligence services speaking to journalists, but I expect them to have a public interface with politicians, and particularly with Committees of this House.

I shall illustrate the point about the obsession with secrecy. On 17 July, I asked the Foreign Secretary this question:


The answer was the equivalent of saying, "I'm not going to tell you; it's a secret." That is not sustainable and we cannot tolerate it. Is it really a matter of national security whether any such meeting took place? In any event, we are entitled to know.

When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence winds up, perhaps he can tell us the latest position of the investigation into the fact that Andrew Gilligan told the Foreign Affairs Committee that he had had access to a top-secret document. I told Lord Hutton that the source would not be discovered, because it was obviously from someone in a high echelon, so the Government dare not find out who it was. I repeat the point that people in the security and intelligence community talk to journalists all the time. If it was someone at the level of Sarah Tisdall, he or she would be found out in five minutes, but people at the top are not discovered, and I really do not like that.

With the greatest respect to my good colleagues on the Intelligence and Security Committee, including my right hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury and for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) and the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates)—who will shortly become a Privy Councillor, although some of us are nature's Privy Councillors and do not need recognition from the Queen—there is no parliamentary oversight of the security and intelligence services in this country. I do not accept that it is a distinction without a difference that the ISC is appointed by the Prime Minister, meets in secret and

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reports to him. The evidence given by Dr. David Kay last week to the US Congress would have been given in secret in this country. We cannot tolerate that.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) that the ISC's status must be reviewed. However, that review must be genuine, and not just a matter of passing a resolution that says that it is now a parliamentary Committee. As inadequate as our selection processes are, it should be for this Parliament to choose the Chairman and membership of the Committee that provides parliamentary oversight.

The Leader of the Opposition made an interesting speech. As he said, we must all reflect on what lessons are to be learned, and I shall do so. I know that the Liaison Committee and others are considering this issue, but witnesses who appear before our Committees need to be cautioned about our expectations. It is reasonable for us to expect candour and full disclosure. Witnesses should not be leaned on by other parties outside the hearings. We pass a motion to that effect in the Sessional Orders after every Queen's Speech. I appeal to Members who will review those orders not to do away with them, but to reinforce them and to see that they are brought to the attention of witnesses before they appear before Committees. That is in the interests of the witnesses and of fairness, because there appears to be a prevailing culture that it is legitimate to give away as little information to parliamentary Committees as one can get away with. I have seen that attitude in several Committees, from private and public sector witnesses, as well as Ministers. That has to be stopped; otherwise we will diminish our capacity to scrutinise, rather than expand it.

Every Select Committee has the chance to decide the subject of its inquiries. The danger is that Committees will be tempted to take the soft options, instead of adopting the issues that challenge the Government, and to which Governments find it difficult to respond. It is our duty not to buckle under pressure. We want Members of Parliament who are prepared to ignore signs that say "No Trespassers" or "Do Not Enter". We should enter doors marked with such signs, and I give my commitment to the House that I shall do so—regardless of what has happened in the past, which I deeply regret. Otherwise, failing that, Parliament will be diminished.


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