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Earl Howe: My Lords, no, they have not. I hope that the noble Lord will think better of that comment. He said that the Government have tried to obscure the truth. I believe that that implies a conscious effort to withhold information from this House. That is emphatically not what has happened.

Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the Government are represented by Ministers in this House, not the MoD. The Ministers in this House have consistently obscured the truth of what the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and others of us knew to be the truth. If the noble Earl wishes to intervene, he can do so.

Earl Howe: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that we have done that deliberately or inadvertently?

Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am saying quite clearly, as I shall say to the noble Earl when I come to the end of the matter, that it is ministerial responsibility to make sure that the truth is known to this House. As for advertently or inadvertently, either they do it advertently, in which case they are dishonest or they do it inadvertently because they are incompetent. That is the truth of the matter.

The Statement continues,

"we had previously been advised"--

who is "we"?--Ministers? The Statement goes on:

"My noble friend ... told another place"--

the House of Lords--

"that we expected the results before Christmas."

A report of this investigation was made on 6th December, which was well before the Question Time which we had the other day as regards the Gulf War syndrome. The Statement goes on:

"I very much regret that Ministers, and therefore the House, should have been inadvertently misinformed".

Again, I put the question to the noble Earl. Who is responsible for the Ministry of Defence? Is it Ministers or is it civil servants acting somewhere or other? The Statement continues:

"the first parliamentary Question in July 1994 was answered incorrectly because Ministers were given flawed advice arising from a failure within one area of the department".

The original flawed advice was repeatedly--repeatedly--resubmitted in answer to further parliamentary Questions. Ministers in this House and in another place did not bother to go back and ask, "Is this really right because we have had a lot of flak in this House from a lot of people?". The Statement says that it has now been found out on detailed investigation,

"that the possible local purchase of OP pesticides was mentioned in background material to a written parliamentary Question answered in October 1995".

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I again quote from the Statement,

"In June 1996 officials on one occasion suggested possible difficulties over the standard briefing line on pesticide use".

The Statement continues:

"In July a note included in briefing material mentioned OP pesticide purchase and use. But it was not until 25th September"--

I repeat, 25th September--

"that Ministers were given clear, written advice on the wider use of OP pesticides during the Gulf War and that previous Answers need to be corrected".

I have no doubt that Ministers will set up a separate investigation overseen by the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Defence to find out what went wrong. But when we come to natural justice the real problem is what is the responsibility of Ministers in this matter? It is all very well for Ministers to say. "We were not told by our civil servants that something was wrong. They obscured things; there was a cover-up and we want to know where that was". But the fact of the matter is that this House and another place were seriously misled. It was only thanks to the noble Countess, Lady Mar, that this matter came to a head. I would like to know from the noble Earl, when he replies, what he believes to be ministerial responsibility for his department.

Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Williams, has asked the question whether Ministers misled the House inadvertently or knowingly. But there is a third possibility. It occurs sometimes when one is in a very difficult position and when one is briefed with an Answer that is particularly precise and reassuring. The question then comes: does one buy it or does one make inquiries? If I had to say, I would say that that is a more likely account and no less culpable on the part of Ministers.

I believe that the first time that the Government grossly misled Parliament was in their response to a Written Question by Mr. Tyler in the other place on 3rd November 1994. The reply of Mr. Soames was as follows:

"I am aware of only 10 British service personnel who would have been involved with organophosphorus pesticides used by United Kingdom forces during the Gulf conflict. These 10 were members of a medical team involved in delousing some 50 Iraqi troops".--[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/94; col. 1235.]

Here is a Minister on the spot being pressed on all sides; here one has a beautifully precise and reassuring reply. A good Minister will say that it is too precise and reassuring. He will make inquiries and see his civil servants. That is what the Government are to do at long last. At the end of his Statement the noble Earl said that the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry would ask precisely that question. He will see this Written Question and look at the minutes and the memorandum. He will be able to decide which of the three explanations is right: the two explanations suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that Ministers knowingly and avowedly misled Parliament, that they were themselves deceived and misled Parliament inadvertently, or that Ministers did not sufficiently examine the briefs that they were given by civil servants in a manner which an efficient and alert Minister should do.

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When listening to the Statement of the noble Earl, for which I am grateful, I thought how much better all of those positive recommendations would have sounded had they been made five years ago. A great inquiry is to begin ab initio. The first of the two questions that it is to ask is whether British Gulf veterans are suffering greater ill-health than they would have done had they not served in the Gulf. If so, what is the nature and magnitude of the phenomenon? That is a good question. It is one that a commander should ask himself after every engagement. Indeed, every platoon commander should ask that question. The Government should have asked themselves that question at the end of the Gulf War. Here we are six years later asking the question and calmly announcing that the answer will arrive in about three years--nine years after the Gulf War. I do not find the Statement reassuring. Now all of the questions are to be asked and every conceivable inquiry is to be made in every direction, but it is too late. It takes place far later than it should take place. I am not clear about the nature of ministerial involvement.

The Government do not have a good record in handling the human problems of servicemen and women, and this will not add anything to their reputation.

Earl Howe: My Lords, I find myself in a little difficulty in answering the noble Lord, Lord Williams. I am sure that I shall appear to him to be giving him a lecture on the British constitution. That ill befits someone like me who is of leaner years than the noble Lord, Lord Williams.

My clear view of the way in which Parliament and government work is that civil servants are accountable to Ministers and Ministers are accountable to Parliament. To be accountable to Parliament means that Ministers owe a responsibility to give an account of their respective departments' activities and decisions to Parliament and to defend them where appropriate, and to be taken to task, if that is necessary, on such matters. That does not mean that Ministers are personally responsible for every single action of their departments. Ministers are personally responsible for those actions over which they have direct control or of which they have direct knowledge. Ministers are perfectly entitled to rely on the advice of civil servants on matters of fact where those matters of fact are outwith their personal experience.

In the case that is best known to me--namely, the questions which were referred to me for answer to your Lordships' House--I relied on factual advice about matters which had occurred some years ago and on which I believed there was a reservoir of knowledge among my officials. I believe that Ministers consider their positions when they have acted discreditably in some way. I do not believe that either I or my colleagues have been negligent in the way that we have approached our duties. If I did, I should be severely troubled.

There is no question of your Lordships' House or another place having been deliberately or wilfully misled by Ministers. It is a matter of profound regret to

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me and my ministerial colleagues that incorrect information should have been supplied to your Lordships and to Members of another place. I apologise without qualification for the mistakes that were made. But apologies are, however, only half the penance. Having discovered the mistakes, we have endeavoured as diligently as we can to discover the truth of the matter. Not all of the detail has yet come to light. We hope that it will. We also hope that those in possession of relevant information will furnish us with it. The report that we have published presents findings and provides pointers to follow-up action. I shall keep the House informed of any further findings of significance.

The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, asked why it had taken this long to commission research. We recognise that we could have acted sooner in commissioning research, but it was only during 1995 that sufficient numbers of veterans came forward for examination in the medical assessment programme in order to see whether there was a pattern of diagnoses similar to that found in the United States. If we compare ourselves with the United States, although much research has been carried out in that country, the Department of Defense research programme was launched only in July of this year. Veterans came forward only very slowly at the beginning of the programme. By the end of 1993 only two individuals had been examined. By the end of 1994 the figure had risen to just 65. By July 1995 the figure was 301. The figure was 337 by the end of December 1995. It rose rapidly until by the end of August of this year 710 had been examined.

When first alerted to allegations of ill-health among Gulf veterans, the MoD had no information on which to base an assessment of the perceived problem. It was vital to collect information about the illnesses being experienced. Once the number of patients examined reached a certain size--several hundred--it became apparent that no single factor or condition was dominant. We recognised the need for larger scale studies to ascertain whether there was an excess of ill-health among Gulf veterans overall. That crucial question--I trust the noble Countess in particular will welcome the fact that we have grasped this--will be addressed by the epidemiological studies that I have announced today. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, asked me a number of questions. However, I hope that I have addressed the nub of his concerns which relate to ministerial responsibility, and that he will agree with the broad definitions and statements that I have provided.

4.30 p.m.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, before addressing my questions to the noble Earl, I wish to ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House whether I am correct in my understanding that we have only 40 minutes for Statements. I notice that we have already used 37 minutes.

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