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6.9 pm
Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon): I start by congratulating my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) on the characteristically lucid and precise way in which he opened the debate on a subject which, for too many years, has been dark and shadowy in terms of parliamentary scrutiny. I agree entirely with him that we can and must recognise the change in attitude on the part of the British Government on the issues since the change in regime last May.
I join my hon. and learned Friend in paying tribute to the Foreign Secretary in coming forward with an ethical foreign policy--a worthwhile initiative, which will be judged over time by what it is able to achieve. The initiative was welcome and it struck a different tone and headed in a different direction from that to which we had become accustomed under the previous regime.
Government Back Benchers, such as the hon. Member for Gloucester (Ms Kingham), can bring to the subject not only personal knowledge, but a different point of view
from those we have seen and heard from Government Back Benchers when the Conservatives were in power. A combination of the initiative on the part of the Foreign Secretary and Back Benchers with a different perspective will, over time, bring about a significant change from what we have seen in the past.
My hon. and learned Friend said that it was now two years since the Scott report was published and debated in this House. Anyone who was there that afternoon will recall clearly the drama of the occasion, and the fact that the Foreign Secretary--who was then in the Opposition--and my hon. and learned Friend had, I think, three hours in which to digest several volumes. None the less, they were able to pinpoint some key facts which, after two years, have not been treated as seriously as they should have been. I wish to refer to the matter of accountability to this House--a matter that I hope that the new Government and the Leader of the House will address. We must make changes to ensure that such things can never happen again.
For the benefit of those who were not here, and as a reminder to those who were, let me say that particular condemnation fell on the head of the former right hon. Member for Bristol, West, William Waldegrave, who was found by Scott and the inquiry to have wilfully misled this House. In particular, it was said that letters that he had written did not seem "to correspond with reality". His claim that the answers he had been giving to questions and in letters and public statements, in which he denied that any change in the Government policy's towards arms exports had taken place, was
As Members of Parliament, we depend on certain things, such as straight answers to parliamentary questions. Occasionally, one does not put the right question and one may not receive an informative answer, but one expects a straight answer. It was found that
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall):
My hon. Friend is performing a helpful and important function for the House. Does he share my disappointment that, apart from a political eunuch--a Whip who cannot speak, or even listen to this attack--there is not a single Conservative Member in the Chamber? Is there some way that we can be sure that those very important lessons for the Conservative party are taken back to those who should be listening?
Mr. Harvey:
I agree that it is shocking, but by no means surprising, that there are precious few Conservatives here to defend the record of the previous Government, but I hope that we shall be able to channel back to them the opinion of the House on their performance at that time.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife is known to have been a sportsman of some note, and it was characteristically sporting of him not to lay about the Conservative party because he felt that it was not here to answer. I shall show no such restraint. I have bitter recollections of a number of campaigns in which I have engaged over time on those matters which seem to bear out precisely the account of the Conservatives' activities that the Scott report highlighted.
I have been involved for some time in the campaign to prevent the export of Hawk aircraft to Indonesia. I listened with some astonishment to the words of the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) on this point. [Interruption.] I welcome the hon. Gentleman's return to the Chamber. It was astonishing that he condemned the Government for the export of arms to Indonesia since the election last year. While I would not wish to query the validity of what he said, had I been wearing spectacles, I would have wiped them to check who was speaking. It was almost as astonishing as listening to Conservatives lambast the appointment of councillors to quangos or listening to the Conservatives' environment team complain about the construction of houses in the countryside--a policy that they started.
Mr. Faber:
It is probably not the hon. Gentleman's glasses which need wiping--perhaps he needs to turn up his hearing aid. I pointed out that, when in opposition--with the notable exception of the right hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), who took a more pragmatic view--the Labour party was vigorously opposed to arms sales to Indonesia. Since they came to power, the Government have changed their mind and have endorsed the very same sales--presumably because they have access to the same information and security advice at the Foreign Office as we had when we were in government.
Mr. Harvey:
I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but two wrongs do not make a right. The new Government
The hon. Member for Westbury looked at the international competitive market in arms and argued that, if we did not get stuck in to make sure that we got our share, others would take the market away. That is exactly the same argument used centuries ago about slavery--we could not possibly afford to get out of the slave trade because others would take the market.
Sale of weapons to Indonesia cannot be justified. Under the Conservative Government, I attended meetings between representatives of Tapol, the campaign for human rights in Indonesia and East Timor, and Ministers from various Departments. The discussions were, frankly, farcical--despite being shown photographs of tanks that had been built in the midlands being used to quell crowds with Hawk aircraft flying overhead, Ministers argued that arms exported from Britain had not been used directly to suppress the citizens of Indonesia. Water cannon from this country have been used for the same purpose.
I could barely believe the discussions--the Ministers seemed supremely indifferent about whether it could be proven that British arms had been used. I believe that the fact that the regime was capable of such acts, and willing to use arms no matter where they had come from, renders Indonesia a market in which we should not be interested and to which we should not make any endeavour to sell.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam):
Is it not precisely such issues that cause so much concern about loopholes? The use of water cannon or armoured cars for crowd control could be justified on the ground of security force self-defence, which would enable such sales to continue.
"so plainly inapposite as to be incapable of being sustained by serious argument."
This was
"misleading to anyone who does not know the substance of the decision."
I recognise fully that Ministers in this Government are not likely to find themselves engaging in the same sort of activities, but it is a point of procedural and constitutional necessity that changes must be made to prevent any member of any Government ever getting involved in that sort of concealment and subterfuge.
"answers to PQs, in both Houses of Parliament, failed to inform Parliament of the current state of Government policy . . . This failure was deliberate and was an inevitable result of the agreement between the three junior Ministers"
who had set out on a policy of concealing from both Houses of Parliament the truth about what had been going on. There was specific condemnation of what they had done. The giving of answers to parliamentary questions, the report said,
"is not simply a part of the game . . . played for the benefit of and under unexpressed rules understood by the Parliamentary players. The answers are also an important medium by which information about government and its activities is made available to the public. It is to be noticed that the respects in which the answers to the PQs about Government policy on defence exports to Iraq were inadequate and misleading were also respects in which some of the letters written in response to correspondence from members of the public were inadequate and misleading."
2 Apr 1998 : Column 1457
The report concluded:
"In the circumstances, the Government statements made in 1989 and 1990 about policy on defence exports to Iraq consistently failed . . . to comply with the standard set by paragraph 27 of the Questions of Procedure for Ministers and, more important, failed to discharge the obligations imposed by the constitutional principle of Ministerial accountability."
That was a damning condemnation of the previous Government and members of it who, acting in deliberate and wilful collusion, had concealed from the House the details of what they were doing.
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