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Sir Raymond Whitney (Wycombe): The Foreign Secretary has told the House that the Legg report confirms that the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary of State were briefed on 10 and 12 March. Does that not call into question some of the subsequent ministerial statements? What were the alleged deficiencies in those briefings on 10 and 12 March? Finally, will the reforms to the Foreign
Office procedures, which the Foreign Secretary has announced today, include an improvement of the procedure whereby the Foreign Secretary signs important authorisations submitted to him by the Director General of GCHQ, so that in future the Foreign Secretary will not incur the wrath of or any rebuke from the security controller?
Mr. Cook: I did indeed say that Ministers were briefed for the debates on 10 and 12 March--it would have been quite extraordinary if they had not been briefed. However, I also told the House that they were not briefed that allegations of a breach of the arms embargo had been passed to Customs and Excise. For the record, the report says that the briefing in relation to Baroness Symons was "inaccurate, incoherent and indigestible".
The hon. Gentleman went on to refer to the question of the signing of warrants. I concede straight away that there was an error at the end of last year, when the wrong form was attached to a submission for a warrant submitted to me. I read the submission and signed the form, unaware that it was the wrong form. I apologise to the House for that error. As the commissioner very fairly acknowledged, I have put in place procedures to make sure that that can never happen again.
The experience has prompted me to read the back numbers of the reports of commissioners. I discovered that in the last three years of the previous Government, there was not one error, not three errors, but 33 errors, including one when the Secretary of State dated the warrant but failed to sign it. I have apologised to the House for that one error. I hope that the Conservatives will apologise for their 33 errors.
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney):
In the spirit that my right hon. Friend suggests of constructive thoughts as to the future management structure of the Foreign Office, I recall there being a hierarchical, centralised decision-making system. The report describes an alternative structure of autonomous commands, and it seems most extraordinary that information did not come out of the Department, even to senior officials, let alone Ministers. Does that not leave room for thought and reconsideration in the light of the findings of the report?
Mr. Cook:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about one of the key findings of the report--the need to improve communications within the Foreign Office, part of which may be to do with the hierarchy within the Foreign Office. I am anxious that we should consider that very carefully, because I want to minimise the number of steps through which any piece of information must go before it reaches the effective level. I can assure my hon. Friend that I will be pursuing that, I hope in co-operation with the Select Committee.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley (South-West Surrey):
Not being a member of the press, who as ever have had days and waves of spin and information, and not being Chairman of the Select Committee, I have only the Secretary of State's statement. It seemed to be a breathless account of shameless complacency and buck passing by a Foreign Secretary who invested unprecedented amounts in promoting his ethical foreign policy and launching his mission statement--a coffee-table book on human rights,
Mr. Cook:
If I recall rightly, the launch of the mission statement last May cost exactly £6,000. The right hon. Lady's point entirely overlooks everything that I have said about modern management methods and about the fact that no private sector organisation approaching anything like the scale of the Foreign Office would not have a clear, agreed mission statement from the top.
As for publishing a human rights report, that was one of our manifesto commitments. It may surprise the right hon. Lady to hear this, but we believe that it is a priority to carry out our manifesto commitments. The cost of publishing that report was well below the travel budget of the Select Committee in investigating it.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington):
I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement this afternoon, although it is surprising, if the Legg report found nothing seriously wrong, that it should be the occasion of no fewer than 60 changes to the management of the Foreign Office. Does he agree that one matter of particular interest to those outside the House who have a real interest in Africa is the increased scrutiny and control of officials' relationships with mercenaries? Mercenary forces have played a particularly malign role in the history of Africa post-independence. I hope that, arising from the Legg report, there will be more and better scrutiny of how officials relate to mercenaries.
Mr. Cook:
I can give my hon. Friend a categorical assurance that I do not expect any official ever again to meet a private military firm without first seeking senior permission--and I will wish to know whenever such a permission is given--and without submitting a full written record. I am confident that those rules will make sure that we will not end up once again in the position when, quite frankly, officials were taken advantage of.
Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling):
The right hon. Gentleman referred to criticisms in the Legg report of the high commissioner apparently failing to inform himself sufficiently of the ambit of the UK sanctions order in relation to Sierra Leone. Does he agree that it would have been fairer to the high commissioner had he not also made it clear that his Department had failed to convey to the high commissioner the complete terms of the UK sanctions order?
Mr. Cook:
As I said to the House, there were misjudgments by officials in the African department and that is why they will be interviewed by the permanent secretary. One example was the failure to make sure that the information was properly available to the high commissioner. However, the terms of the resolution are routinely circulated to all posts. In this case, it is likely that there was a problem because of the unique circumstances in which our high commissioner to Sierra Leone was operating--he was not in the post at the time. There is a reason why information did not reach him.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North):
Is my right hon. Friend aware that, of all the statements that I have heard in the House about arms sanctions busting, this is the only case in which the end result was the restoration of a democratic Government, not keeping in power tyrannies that we have condemned many times. I do not condone mercenaries in any way--as my right hon. Friend said, Sandline's position was clearly much exaggerated--and I recognise the United Nations Security Council resolution, but is not this country's popularity in Sierra Leone based on the fact that we were associated with the democratic forces, not with those who overthrew a democratically elected Government?
Mr. Cook:
President Kabbah--there could be no greater authority on the issue--has written at length to express his appreciation of the moral support, financial support and advice that he received from Britain during his period in exile. Throughout that exile, we were a close friend of President Kabbah and the legitimate Government of Sierra Leone. We pursued that friendship in the United Nations, the Commonwealth and Conakry, where he was in exile. Now that he has been restored, Britain is foremost in leading the international effort to achieve civil reconstruction and an end to the fighting. We can all take some satisfaction from Britain's positive record in Sierra Leone. Now that the Legg inquiry's report has been published, I hope that that can be seen.
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood):
Would not the Foreign Secretary's statement have carried more authority if, instead of reciting the mantra about "systemic and cultural" deficiencies in his Department, he had outlined some of the specific examples of mismanagement by Foreign Office officials? Would we not have more confidence that things were going to get better in his Department if he were to say how, for example, the recruitment of more ethnic or female members of staff would have helped the resolution of the crisis, or why, given that Sandline personnel were instrumental in the efficacious distribution of food aid, he is so ready to apportion blame to specialist personnel on whose services Her Majesty's Government clearly had cause to call?
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