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3.48 pm

Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) (UUP): I rather suspect that Lord Hutton, if he pays any attention to such matters, will have been amused at the way in which the press lionised him at first and then turned against him when he did not produce the desired results. He may even share my amusement at the especially fatuous comment that his report lacked balance. The sentiment seems to have been that his criticism of the BBC meant that he should have criticised the Government as well.

That comment betrays a complete misconception of Lord Hutton's function. He is a judge who was asked to examine certain issues. He took evidence, saw and evaluated witnesses, and made what he considered to be findings of fact. Having looked at his report, I find it difficult to see any basis for differing from his findings on the facts, but of course whether those facts fit into someone's notion of balance is entirely another matter.

Some of the comments—especially some of the commentary—were silly. The right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) referred to a particular newspaper; I want to refer to a particular commentary, although I shall reveal neither the organ nor the author. Two thirds of the way through my example—a splendid denunciation of Lord Hutton—was a little sentence saying that the author had not had time to study the report in detail, which being translated meant that he had not read it.

I turn from that commentary in an outlet that has a high opinion of itself to the refreshingly different point of view of a former editor of The Sun—Mr. Yelland, writing in The Times on Friday. He said:

"I can truly say that when I was Editor of The Sun that story would not have passed muster. I would have asked so many questions it would not have seen the light of day.

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And if it did get in the paper and Campbell had called me, I would have gone through the reporter's notes and, in this case, I would have fired him."

The claim further on in the paper that the tabloid press still retains some of the values of reporters of fact, whereas so much of the quality press is now dominated by commentators who wish to make an impact and a political point is a good one. Although, as a balance to those comments, Andreas Whittam Smith, in The Independent, made the good point that the BBC needs a strong editorial function.

I do not have time to go into details, but the e-mails sent by Kevin Marsh of the "Today" programme are reproduced on page 195 of the Hutton report. He listed eight points that should be introduced to ensure a proper editorial regime over the matters that Mr. Gilligan would deal with in future on the programme. Mention of those points concedes that such editorial control did not exist before that.

I was struck by the comments on the Marsh memorandum included elsewhere in the report. Mr. Dyke said that it had not been brought to his attention and when that was queried, he replied:

"This is further down the chain, quite a long way down the chain".

Similar comments made by Mr. Sambrook and Mr. Davies indicate that persons in the upper echelons of the BBC did not regard the comments of the editor of their flagship current affairs radio programme as something worthy of their attention, or that should even have been brought to their attention. A decent editorial structure in the BBC would be quite different from that, and I hope that the BBC will address that problem, as well as looking into the culture that has developed of making news rather than providing decent analysis of it.

Reference has been made to maintaining the independence of the BBC. That is important, but we need integrity at the BBC, too. I am sorry to have to tell the House that, where I come from, that integrity has sometimes not existed. A journalist who now writes for a left-wing newspaper but who, at the time, was the security correspondent for BBC Northern Ireland gave me one such example. When Garda Gerry McCabe was murdered in the Irish Republic, that BBC security correspondent received, from three separate sources, confirmation that the murder was committed by the IRA and the names of the four persons who are currently serving prison terms, but was told, "Oh no, you can't report that, because it's based on supposition". BBC Northern Ireland then broadcast an interview with a Sinn Fein luvvie, who said, "Oh no, it was the Irish National Liberation Army". I connect that misrepresentation with the circumstance that someone at a senior level in BBC Northern Ireland was arrested in the early 1960s trying to set fire to an Army recruitment office. The case was hushed up because that youngster was then, as now, very well connected. These are questions of integrity. We need to return to a proper sense of public service broadcasting.

A new, fresh inquiry has been announced, and I welcome that. Although I realise that it is in no way connected with the comments that I made in the House a week ago about the need for such an inquiry, I am

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glad, for other reasons, that it has been set up. It is good that the inquiry will be able to look into the gathering, evaluation and use of intelligence, but it is important that that be done in as cool a way as possible. It is curious, too, to read the comments of Dr. Jones today, in which he is clearly concerned about the overstatement of intelligence. As has been said, intelligence is a matter of judgment; it is uncertain. Dr. Jones is concerned that his superiors in the intelligence world were overstating things that he thought should still be qualified. Again, where I come from, there is a strong belief among people who deal with intelligence matters on the ground in Northern Ireland that the chief function of the JIC over the years has been to tone down and take out of the intelligence presented to the Government any awkward or inconvenient fact. There is good reason to believe that that is, in fact, what the JIC has tended to do over the past few years, and I wish that the Government would probe a little bit more deeply into those matters as well.

I wish the fresh inquiry well. It is important that we look back to see what mistakes have been made if only to ensure that performance is better in the future, but I do not think that those inquiries—whether those conducted by Lord Hutton or by the fresh inquiry—change the basic political decision that the House took in March last year. Indeed, what we have heard today from Mr. Kay reinforces that. However, independently of that, I am quite satisfied that the decision that we took then was right and, as the Prime Minister said towards the end of his contribution, the middle east—indeed, perhaps the world—is a better place as a result.

3.56 pm

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) (Lab): Following what the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) said, part of the difficulty is that the JIC has often geared itself to what it thinks its masters want to hear, so should there not be a distinction between analysis and advocacy? I raised that issue in some detail in the debate in the House on 3 July, at column 601. I have a letter dated 16 July from the Prime Minister asserting:

"I have also made it clear that the Chairman of the JIC was responsible for the executive summary and the body of the text. At no time during the process did anyone attempt to override the intelligence judgements of the Chairman of the JIC and his Committee.


The foreword was put to the Chairman of the JIC who confirmed at the time that there was nothing which conflicted with the contents of the dossier."

I have a constructive suggestion to make: there should be a directive to the JIC and, through it, to the entire intelligence community that there should always be a distinction between analysis and advocacy. That might be helpful to the intelligence community because, like many others, I am very uneasy about those in the intelligence community having to shoulder a blame that they do not deserve.

As time is short, I shall be as brief as possible, but I have one other matter that I should like to raise with those on the Front Bench. Towards the end of his speech, the Prime Minister chose to raise the question of the present situation in Iraq. May I repeat that there is increasing need for the west to show an example in at least bringing to trial people who may have done dreadful things, just as people who did dreadful things

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between 1939 and 1945—indeed, before that—were brought to trial at Nuremburg? If we are to going to dampen an increasingly dangerous situation, in which our forces are seen, rightly or wrongly, as an occupying army, it is a matter of absolute urgency that those trials be set in motion.

I have a final question. Is it true, as is coming from certain sources in Washington, that Saddam Hussein is being held at the biggest base outside the continental United States, at Diego Garcia, which is, after all, a British Indian ocean territory? I put that question because of the information coming from Washington.

Mr. Jenkin : Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that the Butler inquiry's terms of reference will allow it to study the difference to which he alludes between analysis and advocacy?

Mr. Dalyell: The answer to that is that I hope so. What I am uneasy about, as are some of my hon. Friends, is whether the Butler terms of reference will carry over into questions about which many of our fellow citizens want to know: the justification for the war in the first place.

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