APPENDIX 1: GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO
THE HOUSE OF LORDS CONSTITUTION COMMITTEE'S REPORT. FIFTEENTH
REPORT OF SESSION 2005-06—"WAGING WAR: PARLIAMENT'S
ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY" (CM 6923)
1. The Government is grateful to the Committee for
the work that it has undertaken in its inquiry on the use of the
royal prerogative powers by Government to deploy the United Kingdom's
armed forces abroad. It recognises the continued interest in this
subject and acknowledges the importance of the recommendations
that the Committee has proposed.
2. The Committee was appointed to "examine the
constitutional implications of all public bills coming before
the House; and to keep under review the operation of the constitution".
Within this remit it has examined various options in relation
to the means by which Parliament's ability to challenge the executive
would continue to be protected and strengthened.
3. The scope the Committee's inquiry was set out
in its report of 28 July "Waging War: Parliament's Role
and Responsibility". The Committee's report deals broadly
with three options:
- Legislation to create statutory
constraints on the prerogative powers
- A Joint Parliamentary Committee to oversee the
armed forces
- A new convention determining the role Parliament
should play in making decisions to deploy forces outside the UK
The Government's position
4. The Prime Minister made clear at the Liaison Committee
on 7 February 2006 "The fact of the matter is that I cannot
conceive of a situation in which a Government … is going
to go to war—except in circumstances where militarily for
the security of the country it needs to act immediately—without
a full parliamentary debate". The Government is not presently
persuaded of the case for going beyond that to establishing a
new convention determining the role of Parliament in the deployment
of the armed forces. The existing legal and constitutional convention
is that it must be the Government which takes the decision in
accordance with its own assessment of the position. That is one
of the key responsibilities for which it has been elected. But
the matter needs to be kept under review.
Existing constraints on the exercise of prerogative
powers
5. The ability of the executive to take decisions
flexibly and quickly using prerogative powers remains an important
cornerstone of our democracy. However, it is important to note
that when exercising these powers, Ministers remain accountable
to Parliament. Whilst, the Government could in theory deploy the
armed forces overseas without the support of Parliament, it would
be almost impossible to identify a set of circumstances, which
would allow the Government to act without parliamentary support.
Ministers are and will continue to be accountable to Parliament
for all of their decisions. Adequate mechanisms for intense parliamentary
scrutiny of executive actions are already in place, these include
the vote of censure or no-confidence, adjournment debates, debates
on a motion, parliamentary questions, ministerial correspondence
and scrutiny by select committee.
6. For example, Parliament has been scrutinising
the UK's deployment of armed forces in Afghanistan. The Secretary
of State for Defence made two statements on the deployment in
January 2006, there have been 168 Parliamentary Questions and
there have been four debates. The House of Commons Defence Committee
has also been conducting an inquiry into Afghanistan. In relation
to the conflict in Iraq there have been 13 debates in both Houses
and 30 Ministerial statements.
7. The Government does not maintain that the prerogative
powers should not be subject to review and investigation. For
instance in 2004 the Government accepted the Public Administration
Select Committee's (PASC) conclusions that in many respects the
prerogative is a historical anachronism and there may be individual
circumstances when it is desirable to replace it with statute
or conventions on parliamentary scrutiny. Examples of this include
the Interpretation of the Communications Act 1985, The Security
Service Act 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994. But,
as the Government explained during the evidence gathering session
in March 2006, it believes on balance that the flexible approach
offered by the present arrangements remains at the moment the
right one.
8. The Government recognises that this subject will
continue to be of wide public interest and acknowledges that the
report of the Lords Constitution Committee "Waging War: Parliament's
role and responsibility" is a significant contribution to
the public debate. The Government will of course continue to listen
to views about the deployment of the armed forces and keeps its
policies under review.
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