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Mr. Speaker: Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman and all hon. Members that these exchanges are on the business for next week. Also, I am expecting brief supplementary questions. Please try to paraphrase.
Mr. Tyler: I shall be as brief as I can, and much briefer than other participants. The Lord Chancellor said that his
- "right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear that the terms of reference exclude ground already so thoroughly covered by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hutton. I do not think that any of us wants the report to go over the ground that has already been covered. It has been made absolutely clear that it excludes any consideration of whether the Government were justified in taking military action. That conclusion, which has been accepted by the Conservatives, is not a matter for a committee".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 February 2004; Vol. 657, c. 790.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman should try again next week, just before we have a break.
Mr. Speaker: No, this is not good enough. I call the Leader of the House.
Mr. Hain: I am not surprised by the hon. Gentleman's question, because he and his leader have been seeking to
distance themselves from the inquiry from the beginning, in contradistinction to the Conservative party, to which I pay credit in that regard. The inquiry's terms of reference are crystal clear. They are to study all the intelligence involved in the background to the decision. That is a separate mandate from that of the Hutton report, and the inquiry under Lord Butler will proceed as everyone has described.
Tony Wright (Cannock Chase) (Lab): On days like yesterday, when we are discussing huge issues of public importance and vast numbers of Members across the House want to speak, is it sensible to curtail the debate on an Adjournment motion at 7 o'clock, when most Members would have liked it to continue for longer? If such debates are to be curtailed, surely we could at least have a system whereby people knew whether they had some chance of being called.
Mr. Hain: I understand my hon. Friend's concerns on this matter, but I am implementing the rules of the House, in relation, for example, to the time limit on speeches. which the Speaker imposed in order to allow more people to participate. My hon. Friend is saying that we should go past the moment of interruption in certain debates—[Hon. Members: "Yes."] Well, the difficulty with that is that there will always be special pleading for all sorts of different Bills—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must give the Leader of the House the courtesy of being allowed to reply. Please bear in mind that I have the power to stop these questions if this goes on. We must allow the Leader of the House to answer the questions put to him.
Mr. Hain: I am grateful to you for that, Mr. Speaker, although frankly, Opposition Members' heckles are easy meat to deal with.
The difficulty for a Leader of the House, as I am sure will be understood more widely, is that there will always be pleas for extensions to debates on this or that issue. Of course I acknowledge that the Hutton report is a very important issue, but exactly the same representations were made to me in respect of the Higher Education Bill—[Interruption.] They were, and lots of people wanted to get in on that debate but were unable to do so. There could be another Bill like that next week. I see the Conservatives nodding vigorously, as they usually do on these issues, but when they were in government they faced exactly the same prospects. Under the new hours—if that is the issue here—we have more time to scrutinise legislation and more time when the House is sitting than we had under the old hours.
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): Can we have an urgent debate on ministerial accountability to the House? I was fortunate enough to secure a debate on roads in Tiverton and Honiton at 5.30 last Thursday evening, when the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), the Minister responsible for roads, in responding to my request for the long overdue south-west area multi-modal study—SWARMMS—report to be produced, said:
- "The work has taken longer than we expected but it is nearing completion."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 28 January 2004; Vol. 417, c. 134WH.]
Mr. Hain: The Minister will obviously want to look very carefully indeed at the statement that the hon. Lady has made to the House. I congratulate her on securing that debate last week on this important issue for her constituency, and I understand that there is another debate next week in which these matters could be addressed.
Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston) (Lab): May I invite my right hon. Friend to tell me when it might be appropriate for us to explore the exchanges in the winding-up speech last night, which came at the end of the debate? In the light of those exchanges, I want to tell the House that I knew that Iraq had only battlefield weapons because I asked the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. I have the highest respect for his professionalism. Is it not hard to credit that, at no point between the September dossier and the March debate, did he explain to the Prime Minister the crucial distinction between battlefield weapons and medium-range weapons? Is it not equally difficult to believe that the Prime Minister's security adviser, Sir David Manning, never thought to ask? When I was Leader of the House, I sometimes found it necessary after these exchanges to consult a Whitehall Department and advise it that it should clarify a public statement. May I urge my right hon. Friend that, today, it might be helpful if he were to give that advice to Downing street?
Mr. Hain: I know—and my right hon. Friend, having occupied my position before me, will know —that Downing street pays particular attention to business questions, and his point will be noted.
Mr. Paul Keetch (Hereford) (LD): The Leader of the House will be aware of the problems caused in Wales by flooding, but is he aware of the chaos that was caused in the city of Hereford last night by the River Wye flooding? It caused gridlock on the roads. Roads had to be closed, a bridge had to be closed, OAP homes had to be evacuated and many homes were flooded. Given that we have been campaigning for a flood defence scheme for the Wye for many years, and that the Government expect a report fairly soon, when may we have a debate in Government time on the Government's flood defence programme generally, and specifically for the city of Hereford?
Mr. Hain: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns in respect of his constituency and in particular that city. The devastation wreaked by the flooding has
been dreadful. In my own constituency, in Pontardawe in the Swansea valley there has been the same impact, which for local residents has obviously been a nightmare. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is monitoring the situation closely, together with the Environment Agency. All steps necessary are being taken to improve the situation, and lessons will be learned. If the hon. Gentleman has further representations, I know that my right hon. Friend will welcome them.
Mr. Clive Soley (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush) (Lab): Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to look at the proposals I made to him some weeks ago to continue the reforms in this place and to build on the success of the Westminster Hall forum—a success about which I am particularly pleased? Those proposals include using it in such a way that Members of this House could question Ministers who are in the House of Lords, but in a forum in this part of the House, and also question European Union Commissioners? Those are just two more proposals that we should be considering to improve our procedures.
Mr. Hain: I very much agree with my hon. Friend that the Westminster Hall debates have been a huge success.
Mr. Hain: I say to the former shadow Leader of the House, tell that to all the Members—including the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), who has just raised such an issue—who have had opportunities to have their constituency issues addressed and to hold Ministers accountable. It has been a big success, notwithstanding the anachronistic comments from the right hon. Gentleman.
The questions of European Union Commissioners and House of Lords Ministers are matters that the Modernisation Committee will look at very carefully. However, precedents could be set by such appearances, which we would have consider very carefully, not just in the Modernisation Committee but doubtless with the Procedure Committee and others involved.
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