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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman is calling for a debate. We should not be holding it now.

Mr. Heald: We need a debate in Government time, led by the Prime Minister, before the House rises.

Mr. Hain: Well, that was a bit of windy rhetoric, was it not, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Before I respond to it, I shall deal with the other points that the hon. Gentleman raised. I do not accept that an hour and a half on council capping is insufficient. The matter has been debated regularly in the House and this will be an appropriate way in which to deal with it. I note the hon. Gentleman's point about Government amendments to the Energy Bill. Obviously, I share with him the desire to minimise the tabling of Government amendments to any Bill, especially at a late stage, including on Report. I also regret that other amendments were not discussed. On the Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Bill, no, there will not be an order brought before the summer recess. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait until an appropriate time for that.

I shall now deal with the substance of the issue that the hon. Gentleman raised. There will be a debate on Iraq on Tuesday, as I have already announced, in which there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the Butler report. Indeed, I can confirm that the Foreign Secretary will make reference to it in his opening speech. He will obviously take interventions on that matter, and any Members who catch the eye of the Chair will be able to make their points.

I refute categorically the suggestion that the House has not had an opportunity to discuss Iraq. The Prime Minister has made a whole series of statements on Iraq and other matters. He also opened the debate on the Hutton report, at the request of the Opposition, among others. He has held himself accountable to the House more than any other Prime Minister, to the extent that, for the very first time, we had a debate and a vote authorising the decision to go to war, which was carried by a clear majority. So the idea that Parliament has somehow been bypassed in this process is absolute nonsense, and the hon. Gentleman knows it.

The hon. Gentleman's reference to the Butler report represents the typically opportunistic stance of the Conservatives, who have consistently supported the
 
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action in Iraq. I could add to the quotations from the Leader of the Opposition on that matter which were repeated by the Prime Minister yesterday, but I shall spare the hon. Gentleman's pain. Frankly, if there is an issue of credibility involved, it is the shifty opportunism of the Leader of the Opposition, and I think that the voters in the by-elections today and in future will pronounce their verdict on that shifty opportunism. If there is a credibility problem, then it is the Leader of the Opposition who has a credibility problem on Iraq, the Butler report and just about everything else.

Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham) (LD): I welcome the proposed statement on the balance of funding review. I also welcome the Adjournment debate on Iraq next week. It was clear from the statement and the comments made yesterday that there was palpable frustration in the House that some Members could not express their views at that time, and I hope that next week's debate will provide an opportunity for the large number of Members—whether they were for or against the war, and whether they are pleased or displeased with the outcome—to affirm their anger that they were led into war on false assumptions. I hope that the debate will provide an opportunity for that opinion to be expressed.

Will the Leader of the House tell us who will summate in that debate? It is important that the Government should have an opportunity to explain, in response to Butler's finding that "serious errors" were made, who individually carries responsibility, when it has been stated that there was collective blame. Will the Foreign Secretary be the person to convey a definitive answer to that question?

Butler raises a wider question, on which the Leader of the House is perhaps the best person to report back to us. If there was a failure of what has been called an informal system of governance, in terms of the way in which the Cabinet functioned and made decisions, will we have a report presented to us, either through a statement or a debate, on how Cabinet government and its reporting procedures are to be improved?

Switching to another subject, a large number of Members on both sides of the House are concerned that schools are being built and transport systems improved by private finance initiative contractors—particularly Jarvis, which is on the brink of bankruptcy. Indeed, we might come back to Parliament in the autumn faced with serious disruption to building programmes if that company does go bankrupt. Is the Leader of the House in a position to say whether the Secretary of State for Education and Skills or another Minister will be able to make a statement on that before the House breaks up?

Earlier this week, the Secretary of State for Health referred to the serious problems arising from MRSA in hospitals and has now acknowledged that this is a major problem in the health service. Can we have a full statement and debate on this, as there is widespread frustration in the House that, although this issue has been raised by me and many other Members over the last six or seven years, it has taken all this time for it to become a top priority issue for the Secretary of State and for action to be taken? Can we have a fuller explanation of what action is being taken on this matter?
 
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Mr. Hain: On Iraq and the Butler report, there has been an honest difference of opinion between the Liberal Democrats and the Government on this matter. I accept that the hon. Gentleman and his party oppose the action that the Government took; they did so honestly, just as we acted honestly, and there should be a mutual recognition of the honesty of each other's position. That is in stark contrast to the opportunism of the Conservatives, who were actually urging us to go to war before the United Nations passed resolution 1441. In fact, they were inciting us to go to war without the authority of the United Nations, before that process broke down. At least the Liberal Democrats have maintained a consistent position on the issue, although that is about all I can say for it. It has yet to be decided who will reply to the debate on Iraq, but I shall obviously take into account the points that the hon. Gentleman raised in that regard.

On the Cabinet, the Butler report made it perfectly clear that the decision making and the style of the Cabinet was no less effective, to quote the Butler report, compared with other Governments. There were 24 Cabinet discussions on Iraq, many of which I attended after my promotion to the Cabinet. There were 25 key meetings of Ministers and officials, and that is apart from the war Cabinet itself. So there was full consultation, every Cabinet Minister had the opportunity to speak, and at the end of that process we came to Parliament and sought the approval of Parliament in the first ever vote on whether to go to war. Any questioning of the decision making is therefore simply unacceptable.

I wonder whether the Liberal Democrats have actually read the Butler report. Perhaps I should read one of its conclusions, which states that

"we have reached the conclusion that prior to the war the Iraqi regime:

a. Had the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including"—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that I ought to say to the Leader of the House what I said to the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald). We cannot go into the details of that debate at this time.

Mr. Hain: I am happy not to go into the details, in that case, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

On MRSA, we were the first to introduce a mandatory system for collecting reports of bloodstream infections. It was introduced in 2001, and it was much needed, given what went on before, including under the previous Conservative Government. Improved cleanliness is obviously an important part of tackling this problem, but it will not be tackled by that alone. I remind the House that it was the previous Conservative Government who privatised hospital cleaning and contracted it out so that low costs were the order of the day, rather than high quality. We have sought to reverse that. On PFI contracts, I will certainly draw to the attention of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised.

Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab): Has my friend seen early-day motion 1512 on Cabinet decision making, which stands in my name?
 
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[That this House notes with unease Lord Butler's observations on page 147 of his report concerning the nature of Cabinet discussions on Iraq; is dismayed that while a small number of key Ministers met frequently, no papers were circulated to the full Cabinet or to a Cabinet committee despite the fact that "excellent quality papers" were written by officials and that information given to Cabinet ministers outside the inner circle and in the Cabinet forum was solely by way of oral briefings by the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary; further notes that Lord Butler's conclusion that this practice "reduced Cabinet Ministers' ability to prepare properly for such discussions" and this reduced "the scope for informed collective political judgement"; deplores the way in which vital decisions on war and peace were taken on the full authority of the Cabinet but without the active participation and engagement of all its members; and calls on the Head of the Home Civil Service and the Prime Minister to give an undertaking to Parliament that the concerns expressed by Lord Butler in the machinery of Government will be fully addressed.]

It is not just the Liberal Democrats who are exercised about this matter: 147 Labour Members voted against the war. PowerPoint presentations to Cabinet Ministers can be no substitute for considered background papers circulated in advance so that Cabinet Ministers can make an informed judgment on important decisions such as going to war.

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