Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
RT HON
GEOFFREY HOON,
MR ANTHONY
SMITH AND
MS SHAN
MORGAN
12 JULY 2006
In the absence of the Chairman, Michael Connarty
was called to the Chair
Q1 Michael Connarty: Good afternoon,
Minister. We are sorry we kept you a bit longer than we thought
but with so many areas we would like to cover with you we had
to decide which ones to prioritise. We may not get to them all
today and hopefully you will be willing to come back and continue
the dialogue with us in the future. I welcome you here and we
welcome you back to the post. You have a great deal of experience
and we are looking forward to your contribution. Everyone on the
Committee holds you in the highest esteem with your knowledge
and activity in the European field. The first question is one
that has always been part of our dialogue in this Committee. Is
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office genuinely committed to the
earliest possible scrutiny of both legislative and non-legislative
proposals under CFSP and ESDP?
Mr Hoon: Yes.
Q2 Michael Connarty: Why is it then,
if we look at our notes, that we have so many cases where it says
"Govt position not given", "Fuller report expected",
"Promise that early warning . . . " et cetera, many
occasions on which there have been failures and what has been
listed here as under-performance by the Foreign Office when, in
fact, we probably would have said in the past that we had a higher
level and quality of information coming to the Committee than
we have had since the beginning of this year?
Mr Hoon: Michael, you slightly
warned me in your letter that in effect you would be raising this
issue, so I have gone back and checked both the statistics and
the practice, and if I can be quite frank with the Committee I
cannot quite see any basis for the criticism that you have made.
There are something like 60 explanatory memoranda that have been
provided to the Committee since January alone and only in four
of those has there been an override. I think there is a proper
explanation in relation to each of them, so unless there is something
specific that the Committee are complaining about I am not wholly
persuaded that this is a fair bill. I am perfectly prepared, if
there are specific complaints, to go back to the department and
raise issues with the department but really the statistics do
not seem to bear out the points that you are making.
Q3 Angus Robertson: Can I follow
up on that point? We have got a list here of a whole host of things.
Mr Hoon: I have not, so—
Q4 Angus Robertson: Maybe I can share
some of the Committee's views on those particular proposals—"Govt
position not given", "Fuller report expected".
Mr Hoon: Hang on.
Q5 Angus Robertson: Sorry; may I
finish please?
Mr Hoon: No, no; hang on a second.
Just saying, "Govt position not given" without telling
me what it is about and the context and the circumstances does
not help the Committee and it certainly does not help me.
Q6 Michael Connarty: I think that
is a fair point. What we are trying to illustrate, and we could
all go through a litany, is that in reality of the 60 you mentioned
31 have had criticisms from our advisers as to the quality of
the information that has been sent to this Committee since the
beginning of 2006.
Mr Hoon: I obviously am not aware
of that criticism. If you would like to share it with me I will
look at it but, of course, Michael, the other criticism that you
make and the main criticism that you have made is that we do not
pass information speedily to the Committee. Of course, there is
a necessary balance between trying to inform the Committee in
due time and preparing an explanatory memorandum. If we spend
a great deal more time on perfecting every dot and comma of those
documents then no doubt you will justifiably complain on behalf
of the Committee that we are not giving you information in time.
If there are aspects of these documents that are not sufficiently
well prepared I certainly am very willing to have a look at them
but I am going to have to do one thing or the other. I am either
going to try and get these documents to you early in order to
allow the Committee to properly carry out its functions and perhaps
necessarily in some cases not spending as much time on them as
officials and I might ideally like, or we delay, in which case
I believe that we would cause the Committee greater difficulty.
Q7 Angus Robertson: How would you
account for us having this impression specifically from the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office? Surely, of all the Government departments
that would have the best understanding of European business, you
would expect to be providing explanatory memoranda and documentation
of the highest standards as opposed to something on which around
the Committee we share a severe concern about the quality of the
documentation that we are receiving from the Foreign Office. How
is this a surprise to you?
Mr Hoon: Because I have not been
aware of it. I do not think this was contained in the Chairman's
letter, to the best of my recollection. The letter was largely
about timing and delay. If there is some issue about quality I
am perfectly willing to look at the question of quality in response
to specific complaints about specific occasions, but again it
is quite difficult to deal with these rather generalised allegations
which may be no more than some members of the Committee taking
a different view of particular issues than other members of the
Committee.
Q8 Michael Connarty: Can I assure
you that these matter do not arise on an individual basis from
Committee members? These are the analyses of officials that we
hold in very high regard who have served this Committee very well
over many years. In fact, I think we have expressed on each occasion
the concerns that we have and we are not talking about individual
cases; we are talking about a trend, as if there has been a foot
taken off the pedal within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
in terms of scrutiny. If it is other departments we will raise
it similarly with them. I know your aspirations will be the same
as ours in that when we get good scrutiny we feel that we have
good material to scrutinise.
Mr Hoon: Michael, could you help
me? I genuinely want to help the Committee. Obviously, if there
is a problem the Committee is anxious about I want to address
it, I want to talk to my senior officials in the department to
resolve these questions, but again quality can cover, if you will
forgive me for saying so, a multitude of potential criticisms.
Is it a lack of detail? Is it a lack of volume? Is it a subjective
assessment of the material? At the moment I have no idea of what
it is that you are referring to. Your letter does not actually
refer to the question of quality. It refers to timing and availability
of information, so I did a lot of research on that. If it is about
quality it would be extraordinarily helpful to me to give me the
information so that I can then go back to the officials and ensure
that the Committee's concerns are addressed, but I cannot do it
on the basis of these rather generalised observations.
Q9 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: This is not
about detail. This is about a contempt by your Department for
the procedures of the House. Let me give you two specific examples
which your Department is perfectly well aware of because they
have been the subject of correspondence already. The first is
about the EU planning team being sent to Kosovo. This was a totally
predictable undertaking, and indeed it was the subject of a decision
by the Council on 10 April but it originates in a report to the
Council dating from 6 December last year. Despite that you had
to override the scrutiny reserve of this Committee. Secondly,
can I raise the issue of the Commission communication on engagement
with Iraq? Again, this is not an unexpected undertaking because
it arises out of the elections in Iraq but it is extremely hazardous,
so obviously we wish to scrutinise it. You only left it with three
working days between the issue of the communication and the decision
having to be taken in the European Council meeting, so again you
had to override scrutiny.
Mr Hoon: And there is a perfectly—
Q10 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Can I remind
you, before you answer, that on the Convention on the Future of
Europe your predecessors assured me that it was a priority for
the British Government to enhance the powers of national parliaments
and keep us better informed particularly about foreign affairs.
This is a complete sham and, frankly, those assurances were misleading
when in practice you are persistently and repeatedly going ahead
with actions and overriding the scrutiny reserve, which you know
perfectly well is the prerogative of this Committee which you
are now in front of, so can you give a rather better explanation
for this systematic contempt for the procedures rather than simply
saying it is all a matter of detail and you have no idea what
has been going on? Your officials know perfectly well so perhaps
you could check with them before you give the next answer.
Mr Hoon: I can give you an explanation
because both of those documents I have looked at and the circumstances
are identical in each case. Definitive texts were not available
until they were supplied to the Committee at the point at which
they were finalised. In one case, in relation to Kosovo, the Committee
was on recess. I am not prepared to allow draft documents to come
before the Committee. Draft documents, as Mr Heathcoat-Amory will
know from his previous ministerial experience, can change significantly
before they are finalised and therefore I am only prepared to
submit final documents. In that case the timing was dictated by
the availability of the final document, and again I think it is
in the interests of the Committee to have that, and as far as
the renewed EU engagement with Iraq was concerned, again, the
explanatory memorandum was deposited as the document was available
and was done within a matter of days. I am afraid the Committee
has to face up to the fact that there are circumstances in which
the Foreign Office moves as quickly as possible and it is no slight
to the Committee, it is not in any way a contempt of the Committee,
and I would invite the honourable Member to withdraw that comment
because officials and ministers are working extraordinarily hard
to make this documentation available. Explanatory memoranda are
looked at as a matter of urgency and are passed through the system
very quickly, something I have checked. In the circumstances neither
of these examples, I am afraid, makes the charge that is being
made against the Foreign Office. In fact, both of them are very
poor illustrations of the complaints that this particular Member
is making.
Q11 Michael Connarty: We do not want
to get into a position where—and I know that—
Mr Hoon: But "contempt",
Michael, is a very strong word.
Michael Connarty: I am taking
your point. All I am trying to say is that it may give that impression
and Members may wish to repeat it but I do not think anyone really
believes that the people who work for the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office or yourself do hold this Committee in contempt. Unfortunately,
a succession of issues gives an impression and people draw conclusions
which may not be based on that approach from your department but
I think the word is used often and the impression is given that
it is the case Mr Heathcoat-Amory might want to think about that
for himself.
Q12 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I have thought
about it, and I am afraid I regard the Minister's reply as completely
inadequate. Nothing he has said alters the fact that the four
months' delay—
Mr Hoon: I am sorry; that is completely
wrong.
Q13 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I am sorry.
Can I just substantiate it?
Mr Hoon: It is wrong.
Q14 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: On 6 December
of last year the Commission reported to the Council about the
possibility of this planning team. The word "planning"
indicates a degree of foreknowledge and planning. Why then was
it not until 10 April that the Minister for Europe wrote that
that an imminent decision was necessary requiring scrutiny override?
You ought to insist and your Department should insist when they
are dealing with the Commission and other Member States that everybody
respects the treaty provisions regarding the status of Member
States and their parliaments. Instead of rushing this through
on matters of expediency you ought to respect what you are required
to do, which is the position of Member States in what is after
all an intergovernmental decision possibly regarding British assets
and British personnel.
Mr Hoon: That is precisely what
was done. When the final text was available an explanatory memorandum
was prepared. Unfortunately, the Committee was on recess at that
time but as soon as the document could be made available to the
Committee it was. Simply because a discussion had taken place
some four months before, before a text had been finalised, does
not really help the Committee. The Committee is not, I assume,
going to sit and discuss the possibility of a whole range of issues
that might or might not have seen action. This Committee, as I
understand it, is here to scrutinise decisions and actions taken
by the Council of Ministers and other institutions in the EU,
and actions depend on decided documents that are in their final
stage. It is unfair to suggest otherwise. Otherwise this Committee
presumably will be in continuous session. Michael, can I just
make two practical suggestions that I believe will help the Committee
and help overcome some of these slightly less than substantive
criticisms? First, it would be extraordinarily helpful if this
Committee co-ordinated its meeting dates with its counterpart
in the Lords. For example, the Lords Committee did not sit in
the week prior to the Whitsun recess and the Commons Committee,
this Committee, did not sit in the week following and as a result
there were three weeks during which documents could not be cleared.
If there is an issue about delay it would be helpful to my officials
to be able to avoid having such a long period when it is not possible
to clear documents. The second practical suggestion, if the Committee
would give it some thought,—and I suspect what is being
complained about quite often is in relation to CFSP, where obviously
in a fast-moving international situation it is extraordinarily
difficult to get documentation before the Committee where it is
necessary, and I emphasise the word "necessary", for
the UK Government to take a position—is to have a meeting
of this Committee immediately before a GAERC because most of the
decisions on CFSP are going to take place at the General Affairs
Council meetings, and to have this Committee meeting a few days
before would help the Government in the sense of making sure that
we can pass through relevant documentation, and I hope it would
help the Committee because that would be a way of ensuring that
the latest information was available. Even then in my experience
of going to these meetings not all of the information could be
made available because very often it is only supplied to the Council
at the very last minute and sometimes after the Council has convened
and is in session. Nevertheless, it would allow us to provide
more information in a timely way to members of the Committee.
Q15 Michael Connarty: Can I thank
the Minister for putting that on the record and you know we are
willing as a Committee to meet outwith formal sessions to discuss
the question of scrutiny and how it works. Can I just underline
the fact that this is not just a question of one member. This
is a question of a consistent feeling within the Committee that
we are not having made plain to us often in Committee papers that
we are sent the position of the Government. It is not clear. I
remember on many occasions when I have lectured to civil servants
about the scrutiny process that I have said that any sense of
obfuscation is not helpful to us, to the Government or in fact
to the whole parliamentary process, nor is the feeling that we
are not getting enough information to know exactly what the Government
intends to do or hopes to do. We are capable of discerning the
difference between a draft and a final document and I think it
might be helpful if we saw drafts with the caveats about
whether there are areas that are not quite certain, because we
do get them like that and they are very helpful and we reserve
the parts that are not quite clear and we can clear the parts
that are clear. That is helpful and is not something we could
not cope with as a committee.
Mr Hoon: Michael, I am not prepared
to do that. I make that clear and I make no apologies to the Committee
for saying this. These documents change significantly in the course
of negotiation and it does not make sense to have these documents
in draft, before they are finalised, submitted to the Committee.
It simply will not work for the Committee. This Committee will
spend a lot of time, if you will forgive me for saying so, pointlessly
debating documents that are going to change. It will not help
the Government either because, frankly, we spend a great deal
of time ensuring that these documents are in the right form before
they are finalised. I really do not think that that is a sensible
way forward. These documents change dramatically.
Q16 Jim Dobbin: I think we are going
to be talking in circles here. I think it would be fair to the
Committee, to the Clerks who have highlighted the difficulties
we have had, and to the department if the list that we have in
front of us were given to the department to have a look at because
these are the issues that we have raised as being problems. We
are never going to be able to work together unless we know exactly
what the specific issues are. I do not know whether the Committee
will support me in that but I think that is the way ahead. If
there is a problem there, and we perceive there is and the department
perceives there is not, we need to come to some joint conclusion
and share that knowledge.
Mr Hoon: That would be very helpful.
Q17 Mr Cash: You very kindly wrote
to us on 12 July and you have just mentioned the fact that you
were briefed up for that particular point, so perhaps I can focus
on that. There is also in this list, though you have not seen
it, and I rather agree with Mr Dobbin's point that it would be
a good idea if you did, but I can give you one example, an issue
in which I am particularly interested, and it is called European
transparency. There is no dispute about this question because
in this instance—and I am now referring back to the points
that Mr Heathcoat-Amory was making—the conclusion that we
came to and the summary, which I have in front of me and you will
see when you get it, is, in relation to the document relating
to European transparency, "Govt view not given". Mr
Hoon, you and I have had a lot of time devoted to the European
question in our parliamentary careers. The idea that you as the
Minister on 21 June can issue a document relating to European
transparency but not give the Government's view is simply comical.
It is also serious because it is quite clear that you do have
a view, so if the Government view is not given then why is it
that you refuse to do so, and I had this out with you in the debate
on this Plan D the other day in Standing Committee and you could
not answer my questions then, but the problem we have is that
in your letter you actually say, and this is the 12 July letter,
that you do not believe that setting out the Government's detailed
views on each of the Commission's recommendations will be helpful
until the debate at EU level has developed further. On European
transparency, Mr Hoon, it is absolutely crystal clear you have
a view, so why the hell do you not actually give it to us in this
paper?
Mr Hoon: I think I have, and I
also thought that the date was different from the one that you
just set out because my letter says that we submitted this on
15 June, not 22 June. I think we may be at odds even on the date.
Q18 Mr Cash: Let us wait and see.
Mr Hoon: I set out a document—
Q19 Michael Connarty: It is the date
on which we discussed the papers, 22 June, so it was before the
Committee on that day.
Mr Hoon: That was a full week
before you discussed it.
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