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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has had his eight minutes.

4.3 pm

Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks) (Con): I am most grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate. This is the first time that I have sought to speak on these matters since the debate of 18 March 2003, when the House made its principal decision on military action. I supported the Government's case for military action then, and I support it now for exactly the same reasons: that Saddam Hussein was a proven danger who had twice invaded other countries; that the alternative to taking action against him would have been to release him from a great deal of pressure, because sanctions and other measures would have been difficult to maintain; that there was a limit to the number of ultimatums that could pass without action being taken against him; and that international affairs had come to a point of decision at which the issue had to be resolved one way or the
 
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other and it was in the national interest of this country to act in concert with our principal ally, the United States of America. Those were the reasons that I voted in favour of military action, and I believe that they are the genuine reasons that the Prime Minister was in favour of military action. Placing too much weight on the intelligence, which was not his real reason, has led him into so much of this difficulty.

There is now a chance, but only a chance, of a great improvement in Iraqi affairs. One of the most murderous and dangerous dictators in the world has been removed. There is a possibility of democracy, a possibility of an improved quality of life for the people of Iraq, and even the chance of greater prosperity in the years ahead. Therefore, while many observers are sceptical about whether western concepts of freedom can be brought into an Arab state, if they are wrong—and they might be—the politics of the middle east will be transformed, and transformed for the better.

I therefore still believe that it was the right thing to do. The trouble is that that is now a minority view in the country as a whole, as is clear from every survey, and possibly from recent election results. Experimentation with spin and public relations, even from a Government who are so skilled in spin and public relations, has led to a public relations disaster on the case for war.

We are all familiar with public relations disasters—I am familiar with more than most. But here we have a monumental failing of public relations, which now casts doubt on the credibility of the actions of the Government, on the international standing of this country, on the moral justification for the war, and on the basis for any future similar action by this country and the United States. Millions of our fellow citizens will now never believe that there was a good case for the war in Iraq, and millions of them will never believe that there is a good case for action in a comparable situation. To have created that situation is a serious responsibility for the Government.

Many errors in a run-up to war can be forgiven, and much that was in the dossier was moderate in tone, as the Butler report pointed out. But the Government have discredited much of their case for war, and damaged this country through mistakes in presentation that were unnecessary and for which they bear a serious responsibility.

The great mystery to me has always been the business of the infamous 45-minute piece of intelligence. My worry has always been not that it went into the dossier, because there was intelligence that mentioned 45 minutes, but that Ministers, including the Prime Minister, seem to have been consistently ignorant of what it meant, and of whether it was still true many months after it was reported.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: When John Scarlett discovered in July 2003 that the intelligence relating to the 45 minutes was unreliable, should he have told the Hutton inquiry that the intelligence had changed, and should he have told the Prime Minister? Is it right that John Scarlett should now be appointed as director of MI6 in such circumstances?

Mr. Hague: John Scarlett should have told the Hutton inquiry, and he should have told the Prime Minister. I will come to that point in a moment.
 
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Let me take a prior point: it has been reported clearly that the Prime Minister did not know that the 45-minute claim related to battlefield weapons. I find that extraordinary. Ministers ask questions all the time of their civil servants, about all kinds of things. One cannot picture most Ministers being told by their officials that lunch would be ready in 45 minutes without asking searching questions about the menu and by whom it was going to be delivered. The idea that someone can walk into the office or give the Prime Minister a document saying, "Our deadliest enemy has weapons of mass destruction that could be mobilised against us in 45 minutes", and that the Minister or Prime Minister does not say, "What sort of weapons?", is absolutely unimaginable. Can we imagine Baroness Thatcher being told at the time of the Falklands that the Argentines had weapons of mass destruction that could be used in 45 minutes? The official who told her would have been pinned to the wall until he had worked out and told her every last little bit of intelligence and any point of detail about that claim.

So how could this happen? The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), who just intervened, raised a parallel point, which is the incredible sequel, that key evidence identified in the Butler inquiry, possibly including the 45-minute claim, was withdrawn in July 2003—a year ago. And yet it turned out a few days ago, so we were told, that the Prime Minister was only aware of that withdrawal of intelligence as a result of the Butler inquiry—more recently. So on this major item of public controversy, on which the Government's whole credibility is at stake—with controversy raging about the 45 minutes and many other claims, in the press and among the public—MI6, and perhaps Government officials, knew that the evidence had been withdrawn, and no one told the Prime Minister. If it were in a novel, we would all say that it was ludicrous—that it could not happen. Of course they would tell the Prime Minister.

Mr. Salmond: So the first item is unimaginable and the second is ludicrous. What conclusions did the right hon. Gentleman draw?

Mr. Hague: How neat of the hon. Gentleman to lead me to the conclusions—and I am most grateful to him for giving me an extra minute in which to explain them.

One conclusion I would have drawn had I been in the Prime Minister's shoes is that the officials or intelligence officers who had not told me were not doing their job, and should be part of the Chancellor's great redeployment to the regions—probably to the hon. Gentleman's constituency, which is a very long way from Downing street.

There are four possible explanations of how these things could be true. One, which I discount, is that the Prime Minister does not ask questions—that he is indolent or inattentive. Given my knowledge of the Prime Minister, I do not believe that that is the case. Another is that officials do not do their job properly in informing the Prime Minister. Perhaps there is a hint of that in the point that we have just been discussing, but I doubt that it is the case in general, because the British civil service is a fine machine and puts forward its very best cogs to serve the Prime Minister.
 
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A third theory is that this has something to do with the criticisms of the culture of Government that Lord Butler and his colleagues identified: that informality can mean lack of rigour, that the blurring of the line between officials and political advisers can lead to mistakes—to the elevation of material to the public domain without adequate examination of it—and that people who only know politics dabble in intelligence, and people who only know intelligence dabble in politics, at their peril.

Let me respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Pendle about Mr. Scarlett. I think that he crossed that line at his peril. My personal view is that given the importance of restoring the public credibility of an intelligence service whose officials should never really become public figures, it is important for the senior official not to be someone who has been the subject of public controversy over the publication of intelligence that has subsequently been disproved. I have no doubt that he could serve the public in many continuing ways, but none of us is indispensable, and it should be possible for MI6 to be led by a different person. That is my honest answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.

Part of that culture of Government is that there are never any minutes of key meetings. At the time of the famous Formula 1 tobacco advertising outrage—as I would call it—of a few years ago, there were never any minutes showing who made the decisions. It is a culture of informality, but also a culture of deniability, in which it is hard to pin down who said what to whom.

There is, however, a final explanation. It is that the intelligence was never really an important factor in the Government's decision to wage war; that they waged war for precisely the reasons on which I agree with them, and precisely the reasons that I stated at the beginning of my speech; that they knew the history of Saddam Hussein, and knew that what little they would glean from intelligence on a shifting basis from month to month would not change their case for war. That, I believe, is the Government's central error, and one for which they must bear a heavy responsibility—because it means that they pursued the correct policy, but have ruined the case for doing so.

The Prime Minister says that he takes responsibility, but just shrugs his shoulders. It is a tragedy for him that this has done serious harm to our nation and its allies; and that, having pursued a policy that was essentially correct, the Government have ruined their case in the eyes of the country.

4.14 pm

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