Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
RT HON
LORD HURD
OF WESTWELL
CH CBE, RT HON
LORD OWEN
CH, RT HON
SIR MENZIES
CAMPBELL CBE QC MP AND
ADAM PRICE
MP
3 APRIL 2008
Q20 Paul Flynn: Indeed. Do you see
this as something that could maybe improve the future conduct
of Prime Ministers if they knew that they did not have the ability
to re-write immediate history?
Lord Owen: Yes. Sir Percy Craddock,
who was a diplomat but also had been Chairman of the JIC and then
had been Margaret Thatcher's adviser on foreign policy and intelligence
matters, has written an extremely good book on the history of
the JIC and he has had access to the papers and he is very critical
of Eden's conduct of the JIC and by-passing of the JIC and taking
intelligence, and it has an eerie quality, some of his criticisms,
of the present circumstances in the Iraq inquiry, and I do think
we would have learned lessons. The other question, which I think
we will have to address, is how do you get at the different views
of the military? For example, some people say that in Iraq we
were just a small pimple, we had no effect; we could never have
had an effect. I think this is a completely nonsensical position.
There was a point in Iraq where John Sawyers, the Ambassador in
Egypt, who had previously worked for Tony Blair in 10 Downing
Street, was sent into Iraq and made a report and warned that it
was chaos and there was no plan and the whole thing missing. He
also made a recommendation that a battalion of British troops
should be moved to Baghdad, and we know that because this memo
has been revealed. What we do not yet know is what discussion
was taking place inside the Government. It is becoming pretty
much clear that there was a division of opinion between the military
advice on this, and it is pretty much clear that the Chief of
Defence Staff, then General Walker, disagreed with the Chief of
the Imperial General Staff, General Jackson. It is not yet clear,
but it is beginning to be. I think these things are important
to discover. The tradition previously of the military going before
parliamentary procedures of this House is that they only say that
which the Government has accepted. Therefore, as the Government
also accepts, they do not display their differences. This is a
very delicate question and you will all have to look at this.
It is a very hard thing to know. Broadly speaking, I think it
is right in the normal working of government that civil servants
give the advice, and keep the advice which they say to ministers
private and this applies to admirals, generals and air-marshals,
but there must come a moment when an inquiry is of such importance
that that has to end and there has to be a readiness to reveal
difference of view. Then you have to decide, should the Prime
Minister, as I believe he should have done, have decided that
we would reinforce Baghdad? Had we reinforced Baghdad it would
have been impossible for Rumsfeld to off-ramp, as they say, the
1st Cavalry Division American troops and they would have increased
their forces. It would have been impossible not to have responded
in America to putting more troops into Baghdad if the British
had done it. This is a perfect example of where, entirely within
the confines of British decision-making, it would have been possible
to have had a dramatic influence on the conduct and the success
of the Iraqi occupation.
Q21 Paul Flynn: I am grateful for
that. Can we go back to the principle of this: which is the better
inquiry, which is the better way to do it? The difficulty we had
over Iraq, which is almost unique, is that both the Government
and the opposition were implicit in that original decision but
would presumably both be reluctant to have an inquiry and to have
the full truth come out. Shall we take it that a future Prime
Minister would know, if they are involved in a decision of this
kind, that there will be an inquiry that will certainly take place
within a short period and it will be within the control of Parliament
and not within the control of the Executive. Would that not be
beneficial for the quality of future decision-making?
Lord Owen: I think so, yes. Of
course, an American President knows that perfectly well. He knows
that Congress will inquire into any decision he takes on an issue
of controversial foreign policy, and I think it would not be a
bad thing if the ministers did know this, but you have to be careful,
and you all know this. The normal convention that advice to ministers
is private is a good one and, equally well, a convention of collective
responsibility and that cabinets make decisions and that dissent
is not known until a long period afterwards. I think it has to
be very exceptional, therefore, when you break that convention
when you come before Parliament, and, again, I think personally
that is a parliamentary decision that has to be taken for a particular
inquiry.
Lord Hurd of Westwell: I think
it is exceptional. I think this whole thing should be treated
as exceptional in order to get at the kind of incidents that David
is talking about. I know John Sawers. He was my private secretary.
He is now our representative in New York. He is not like Mike
Jackson, who is retired, he is a continuing and crucial senior
diplomat, but, on the other hand, these things have to come out
if the inquiry is to be worthwhile. As the key to turn the lock,
you do need the consent of government but the consent of government
which is achieved because of the respect and fear which ministers
should have of Parliament. So much will depend, to repeat a point
I started on, with the spirit and purpose of the whole thing.
If it is regarded as simply an effort to identify and punish and
to expose, then you will not get, in my view, the kind of co-operation
from human beings which you will get if the aim is clearly to
prevent any such thing happening again and to correct the clear
errors, mistakes that happened in the conduct of the Iraq war.
There is a difference of character. If an inquiry is to be really
productive, it needs to be organised so as to have that second
characteristic rather than the first.
Sir Menzies Campbell: I think
one has got to see this, too, against a changing background, particularly
the influence of freedom of information: because, as you know,
the Commissioner, I think, has made an order in respect of some
Cabinet documents which the Government has now appealed to the
High Court, and it will be very interesting to see whether the
High Court takes the view that the Commissioner has acted so unreasonably
that his decision has to be overturned. If that is the after-taste
of access to information, then clearly it has some relevance to
the enthusiasm which we would have for inquiries of the kind we
are discussing and the consequences of that, and that is why precedents
are interesting; but in these matters one has to remember that
Parliament is supreme and, therefore, Parliament can do what it
wants and if there is a background of increased access to information
because of the Freedom of Information legislation, then Parliament's
opportunity to take a more proactive role is obviously enhanced.
Q22 Paul Flynn: Adam, would you like
to perhaps say a word or two about the four inquiries that have
taken place? How adequate you regard them as being. What would
you see as the ideal inquiry and the ideal mechanism for creating
such inquiries?
Adam Price: Clearly, the Foreign
Affairs Select Committee has been the only major parliamentary
inquiry. Their principal problem was that they were frustrated
in their access to information. I think that a parliamentary commission
of inquiry of the type that your Committee is positing is a new
model and certainly one which is emboldened with a parliamentary
mandate, won on the floor of the House in the teeth of Executive
opposition. I think it would be impossible for a government to
frustrate the will of that inquiry. I think Iraq is unique, it
is uniquely terrible, I think, in terms of its consequences, but
also it does flow from failings in the constitution, as I said
earlier, which are of a more general nature—particularly
the falling away of the traditional checks and balances of the
British constitution, particularly ministers listening to advice,
whether it is from the diplomatic services, civil service, et
cetera, the role of discussion in Cabinet and also the role of
Parliament in checking the power of the Executive—and I
think that as well as learning what went wrong, setting up a parliamentary
commissioner would make a major contribution as well to restoring
that balance within the constitution. The deterrent effect that
you refer to would be very important. In the Blair years we had
so many wars we would be having commissions of inquiry every year,
which is one of the problems, but certainly we need to send out
a clear message to future administrations that Parliament reserves
the right in extremis to actually investigate in a way
that it would not normally do in a select committee mode but in
a far deeper way with unfettered access to papers and to persons.
Q23 Julie Morgan: Lord Owen, you
said that you thought the Prime Minister did not want an inquiry
because it would be embarrassing for him. Is there any reason
that you think the Government could be justified in not wanting
an inquiry into the Iraq war soon?
Lord Owen: I think it is difficult.
By and large, Prime Ministers, if they are of the same party,
they may have a chequered relationship with their predecessor
but, equally well, they owe obligations to them. To some extent
that is a decent, honest and honourable tradition. They are not
there to make life difficult for them if they can avoid it, and
it does seem to me not unreasonable for Parliament to say in these
situations. The more I hear of this, and I have not thought of
it quite so much, the more I do believe that what you are discussing
is completely novel procedure to be very exceptionally undertaken,
and I think that what Douglas Hurd has said about the Marconi
Inquiry should hang over you at all stages, because we have had
our own debates, and I am the only one here who actually supported
the war whole heartedly, so the way this inquiry is seen is going
to be extremely important for the future. You have been involved
in this before this for a long time. I would have thought you
could come up with an overall conclusion which could carry conviction
with people of all parties in substantial numbers in both Houses
of Parliament, and I think that would be a better way of establishing
this inquiry that it was not a select committee, you did not use
the select committee procedures which I had previously thought
would be all right. I think it would be quite important to ring
fence it by making it almost unique, and I think it would carry
more conviction in that way. You would not then have the business
of establishing precedents and everything like that, and the more
I listen to the way you have obviously given a lot of thought
to it, that is the way I think it would be better.
Q24 Julie Morgan: I wanted to ask
Lord Hurd a follow up question. You said that one of the reasons
the Government has given is concern about troops still being in
Iraq. You said you thought the troops would welcome an inquiry.
I just wondered if you could expand on that.
Lord Hurd of Westwell: I think,
and this is all anecdotal, of course—
Q25 Julie Morgan: Yes, but it is
an important point.
Lord Hurd of Westwell: But I have
the strong impression that people serving in Iraq are fully aware
of the controversies at home—of course they are. The idea
that they can be somehow sheltered from a perfectly legitimate
political argument at home is absolute nonsense. They are citizens
like the rest of us and they know that something has gone seriously
amiss with the way in which the enterprise in which they are involved
was planned and carried out. Therefore, just from a professional
point of view, they need to know what went wrong and how it can
be prevented from going wrong again. This is purely anecdotal.
I cannot prove my point, but that is my quite strong impression
of a very general view.
Sir Menzies Campbell: There is
some proof. If you have got time, read the military blogs. People
serving are very, very clear about what they think about what
they are being asked to do, the circumstances in which their obligations
arose and the extent to which they should continue doing what
they are doing at the moment. They are very, very frank.
Adam Price: I want to return to
the issue of partisanship, which is the pitfall that Lord Owen
sets out in terms of the parliamentary inquiry. Looking at congressional
experience, of course, they did have a problem with one of their
investigations, one of the House Intelligence Committee, where
the Republicans, for their partisan reasons, were trying to delay
and delay publication of any report, or any progress, and the
Democrats were leaking to the press all the time. In fact, it
got to one ridiculous stage, I think, where the FBI were investigating
the committee for the leak while the committee were investigating
the FBI. I think that the Congress actually has recovered its
position: because they set up the Baker-Hamilton Commission. That
was with co-chairs, one from either party, and that is a model,
I think, for the kind of bi-partisan commission, which has broad
political support, which is not a political covetable lynch-mob,
it is a genuine attempt to get to the truth and to learn the lessons
and to hold people to account, where necessary, but to do it on
a fair and a bi-partisan basis; and that commission, of course,
did report while troops were on the ground, while significantly
more American troops were on the ground than is the case in Britain;
so actually that gives the lie to the argument that this cannot
be done while troops are engaged in the field in Iraq.
Q26 Mr Prentice: When you say the
commission should be balanced, what do you mean by that? It should
reflect the relative strength of the political parties in the
House, or the people who voted against the war? There were 104
Labour MPs who voted against the war—more than any other
party? What do you mean by balance in this context?
Adam Price: I think the idea of
a co-chair, which is a tradition with many congressional initiated
commissions, is something that is worth looking at, one from the
opposition and the governing party. Our original motion was to
set up a committee, I believe, of 13 members, which would have
been broadly reflective, in our case, of the House of Commons,
though it is another issue, if it was a parliamentary committee,
whether it should be a joint committee of both Houses. But, yes,
I think it should be reflective of the broad political balance
and also, you are quite right, Gordon, it should reflect the range
of views within each party, because there were Tory rebels who
voted against the war and there were Labour devotees that voted
in favour.
Q27 Mr Prentice: What about the military?
There is a precedence going back decades, of course, that the
military were represented in commissions of inquiry, but now we
have it on record that lots of former chiefs of defence staff
want an inquiry. Lord Bramall said the Prime Minister—that
is Tony Blair—failed properly to consult the chiefs of staff
or his Cabinet colleagues before going to war, and Lord Craig,
the former Air-Marshal of the RAF, thinks there should be an inquiry.
He said, "I think it is very timely to have an inquiry before
memories fade." We have got General Sir Mike Jackson. The
military are queuing up calling for an inquiry. In this parliamentary
commission should the military be represented as well?
Adam Price: My preference would
be for a parliamentary commission which would be composed of senior
parliamentarians.
Q28 Mr Prentice: Lord Guthrie is
a parliamentarian.
Adam Price: Yes, of course, and
in the case of former senior military, certainly that option would
be open if they were ready to serve in that context.
Lord Owen: Lord Inge was on the
Butler inquiry.
Q29 Mr Prentice: Yes.
Lord Owen: I would be perhaps
a little bit careful about this Baker-Hamilton analogy. That reached
agreement because it broadly was looking to the future. This inquiry
is looking to the past. It is always easier to lift people's horizons
and reach agreement when you are looking at the future; looking
at the past is pretty divisive.
Lord Hurd of Westwell: I would
foresee people coming in—independents. As I said, I can
think of two or three people, commentators who have studied these
matters through life. They might not want to do it, but people
like Sir Michael Howard, and so on, who have got the history and
the guts of this in them. You should bring in people from outside,
make them privy counsellors. You said both Houses of Parliament,
Chairman. The House of Lords, whatever your views on it, would
be very useful on this kind of occasion.
Mr Prentice: So you pick an expert and
then you make him or her a privy counsellor and Bob's your uncle.
Chairman: I think when we recommended
on this some time ago we were emphatic about it being both Houses,
but also that it could then bring in people in a mixed membership
format and then it could, of course, take on its own advisers—if
it wanted military advice it could take those people on, if it
wanted legal advice it could take those people on—and so
you can devise the construction that best suits the purpose of
the inquiry, and it would be a sui generis kind of model
and not one that would just be an adaptation of the ordinary select
committee system. That is just to clarify.
Q30 Mr Prentice: What about summoning
witnesses? This Parliamentary Commission would have full powers
and you would expect the powers to be exercised. The witnesses
would give evidence on oath, they would be cross-examined because,
as we know, when Tony Blair appeared before the Hutton Inquiry
famously he was never cross-examined, so in reality this Parliamentary
Commission would exercise` the full powers that Parliament has,
insisting on attendance and so on and so forth.
Adam Price: Absolutely.
Sir Menzies Campbell: Just on
Baker-Hamilton, of course another caveat is the notion of bi-partisanship
is very well established in the American system, I think rather
more than in our own. Lots of initiatives are done particularly
in the Senate on both sides of the aisle. You have to bear that
in mind when arguing that is necessarily an illustration we should
follow in this country. We do not have as well developed a system.
Adam Price: That is right and
part of the reason why Parliamentary Commissions became discredited
was because of the rise of the party management system and whipping
and people's personal and party loyalty coming first rather than
a dispassionate objective assessment of the facts. I think a vote
on the floor of the House which had arisen either from a motion
from a committee such as yours or from maybe a backbench cross-party
initiative which was won on the floor of the House would signal
the beginning of something new, a loosening of those ties. We
read academic analysis which suggests that this is the most rebellious
Parliament ever, almost because the whipping system, the party
management system has become so extreme, people are responding
against that. In fact, the biggest rebellion from Labour MPs on
an Opposition motion was precisely on the motion to set up an
Iraq inquiry, 12 Labour MPs. That is the highest number of Government
MPs who have rebelled under this Government on an Opposition motion,
which is obviously difficult, I understand that, for a Labour
MP to vote on say a Conservative motion. There is something happening
here which I think is historically and constitutionally significant.
Q31 Mr Walker: If we cannot initiate
an inquiry as backbench Members of Parliament, what is the point
of Parliament? What are we here to do? Are we just here to make
up the numbers to support the Executive or support the leadership
of our parties in opposition? I would be interested in your views
on that because I think a lot of my constituents wonder what the
role of a Member of Parliament is if we are not allowed to ask
the difficult questions which they want asked.
Lord Owen: You can. The Liaison
Committee has a capacity to determine which Select Committees
have motions. If this Select Committee put forward a motion and
the Liaison Committee agreed, you would get Parliamentary time,
is that not the case?
Chairman: No, I think it is rather that
they have the ability to have debates. You are into difficult
territory when you start talking about motions, I am afraid, but
we are on the case.
Q32 Mr Walker: I am seriously interested
in your views as esteemed parliamentarians, what you believe the
role of Parliament should be and backbench Members of Parliament
because I think we do not flex our muscles enough and some of
the criticism levelled at us is deserved at the moment.
Lord Hurd of Westwell: You have
allowed the Executive, under the misleading logo of reform of
Parliament, to bind you into procedures which make it much more
difficult for you to probe and make life difficult for the Executive
than it used to be. Your hours, the way you vote, the principles
of the guillotine, all this in the name of reform has bound you
more tightly to the Executive, but this is an example where you
can break out.
Sir Menzies Campbell: It is reflected
in the fact if you look at Parliament, when do people come now,
they arrive Monday lunchtime, Monday afternoon. If there is no
particular business on Thursday or a motion on the adjournment
or their Committee is not sitting, what do they do, they go back
to their constituencies. The notion of being a good constituency
MP has become very, very fixed in people's minds, when, in fact,
our constitutional responsibility is to hold the Executive to
account and protect the interests of our constituents against
an over-mighty Executive.
Lord Hurd of Westwell: They make
a Cabinet Minister get up in the middle of the night, come and
answer a backbencher like Tam Dalyell who puts an awkward question
on an embarrassing subject and you have to answer it at 1am in
the morning, but that is what Parliament is about, you have given
a lot of that away.
Adam Price: If you take my position,
indeed the position of the former Secretary General of the United
Nations, that the Iraq War was illegal—I know there are
a range of views but it is certainly my view—then to some
extent Parliament was complicit in that crime. We voted for the
war and, therefore, I think it is incumbent now upon Parliament
to undo some of the damage that at least in part we contributed
to. It is our responsibility now to force this inquiry and use
every mechanism at our disposal. Select Committees in Parliament
should have the right to force motions on to the floor of the
House of Commons in the same way that Congressional Committees
have that right and we need to win that battle. Specifically on
this in terms of tactics, then I think all the Opposition Parties,
the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Nationalist Party,
have said, "We are willing to give up our time to a cross-party
motion or even a motion headed by backbench Labour MPs so that
more of them support the idea of the inquiry". I have no
doubt there is a majority in the House of Commons who want an
inquiry, we just have to find the means and mechanism whereby
it is politically possible for that to happen.
Q33 Paul Flynn: This is a fascinating
situation having three distinguished elder statesmen inciting
insurrection against the Government from the backbenchers, but
one which is very justified and very welcome. Do you see some
hope in what was recently declared about the decision that now
for the first time we can vote on going to war and reflect on
the fact that there was a decision taken on Afghanistan—and
up until the end of 2006 five people had been killed—to
go into Helmand Province and now 91 people have been killed, but
Parliament has never voted on the Helmand mission which, in terms
of the deaths of our soldiers and the problems involved, was probably
a greater decision than the original decision to go to Afghanistan?
Do you see hope in the future? You have a very bleak view of how
Parliament is losing its powers and backbenchers are not doing
their jobs. There is some justification, but do you not see some
elements of hope in that we can take decisions on going to war
which we could not take before?
Sir Menzies Campbell: If we are
to avoid the disconnect between public and politicians, then we
have to take steps to re-establish our capacity for scrutiny and
determination to protect the interests of our constituents, otherwise,
fewer and fewer people will vote, more and more people will join
pressure groups and NGOs. It is not that people are disinterested
in politics but they are disinterested in political parties and
politicians and that is our fault.
Lord Owen: Politics is a blood
sport and I slightly dissent from all this. I agree with what
Douglas Hurd said, which was that in rationalising Parliament
and doing all these sensible things, the overall effect is that
some of its rawness has gone and that is a reality of life. If
you in this Committee would agree to a proposition that this report
would come after the election, I believe you would find a lot
more doors open and you might find that you could get something
from the Government which you would accept.
Q34 Mr Prentice: Everyone is in favour
of an inquiry, the Prime Minister is in favour of an inquiry,
the issue is when this inquiry will take place.
Lord Owen: Also when it reports.
Q35 Mr Prentice: I suppose it is
because it fears that it will all become very, very partisan.
The Liberal Democrats will be occupying the high moral ground
because they voted against the war; the Conservatives, having
voted for the war, will try and redeem themselves and so on and
so forth, and it could become very bloody indeed. This is why
Gordon Brown wants to kick it into the long grass, I suppose,
but there may well be an inquiry after the next General Election
anyway.
Adam Price: Looking at it from
the Labour Party perspective, then surely unless he makes his
position clear in terms of the timing and the nature of the inquiry,
then it will become an election issue. The best way to take it
out of ordinary partisan politics is to establish a properly constituted
inquiry.
Q36 Mr Prentice: When I was talking
about being partisan, I do not know, Adam, if you are in favour
of indicting Tony Blair as a war criminal, are you?
Adam Price: That is an incendiary
use of language, Mr Prentice.
Q37 Mr Prentice: If we are talking
about this business of partisan politics being blood sports.
Adam Price: I have made my position
clear, I wanted to impeach him. Obviously I am still of that view
because I think the war was illegal and there was serious misconduct
in Government policy here and people should be held to account.
That is not the discussion we are having now and that should not
be used to try and discredit the far broader debate we are having
about the need for a proper inquiry.
Q38 Mr Walker: It strikes me as a
new Member—and I would have voted to go to war whenever
the vote was taken, I was not here and I will regret it bitterly
for the rest of my life, but I think I need to admit that on the
evidence available then I would have voted in favour of a war—that
so much of what we do in the House of Commons is just so cursory.
We suffer from Bill fatigue, nothing gets properly debated, nothing
gets properly scrutinised, we turn up, we vote on things we have
no idea about what we are really voting on and it seems to me
this would be a perfect example for us in Parliament to get our
teeth into something and do something seriously. After all we
have lost hundreds of young men and women out in these conflicts,
thousands of people have been injured and really this is an opportunity
for Parliament to establish itself as a serious body looking at
serious things, matters of life and death. If that is a statement,
I am sorry, but if anyone would like to comment on it, please
do.
Sir Menzies Campbell: Hear, hear!
That is correct.
Q39 Kelvin Hopkins: We have been
talking around what are fairly fundamental constitutional issues,
the overweening power of the Executive over Parliament which is
unusual in most modern democracies and how we change that. Is
there not some fairly fundamental constitutional change needed
so that this sort of thing does not happen again, so that Parliament
will be able to express its will and not simply be just a slavish
majority supporting whatever the Prime Minister wants?
Lord Owen: At the end of the day,
Parliamentary power comes on the vote. The Chairman's remarks
point to the problem. You have a Select Committee procedure, you
have a Liaison Committee procedure, you have the allocation of
days, you can put a motion on, a question apparently which is
still open is the vote. Therefore, until you can have power over
the vote, you will be toothless. The vote is the ultimate element
and that is the issue where it comes to appoint a decision. You
have to find a mechanism through all these new procedures whereby
you, as a Parliament, have a voice on the vote.
Adam Price: There was a discussion
in the 1970s, for example, as to whether errant rebellious groups
of governing party MPs should not be given the right. For example,
if 60 Labour MPs signed a motion, not just an amendment to a Bill,
which does happen obviously, but they could have some time on
the floor of the House, how that would make Parliament a far more
interesting place, would it not? Again, one of the problems in
our political culture is that even if a backbench MP of a governing
party agrees with an Opposition motion, there is a tribal instinct
in them which prevents them from going through the lobby with
the Tories. I think we need to look at all kinds of mechanisms
which can give Parliament greater control of its own time, but
also make sure that Parliament reflects the views of Members of
Parliament because it certainly does not at the moment on this
issue and I suspect on many others as well.
Sir Menzies Campbell: We can do
all this if we choose to. We do not need to change a bloody thing
in the House of Commons. If collectively we said, "This is
to be an exercise of independent judgment", then the sort
of idea of hearts and flowers, if I may put it that way, we have
been discussing is perfectly within our grasp, it is just that
we choose not to do so. Why is that? Because of the enormous pressure
which the party structure has upon our politics.
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