| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Civil Contingency Planning
23. Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con): What recent representations he has received on civil contingency planning. [152265]
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Douglas Alexander): The Government maintain a close dialogue with a wide range of stakeholders in their civil contingency planning work. The Government consulted publicly on the draft Civil Contingencies Bill between June and September 2003 and received 379 responses from civil protection professionals, representative organisations, lobby groups and interested individuals. We published a report of the results of the public consultation on 7 January this year. Engagement with a wide range of stakeholders continues with the development of the regulations and guidance under the Bill.
Bob Spink : Is the Minister aware that the Thames gateway area is a flood risk area? Will he explain it to his right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, who wants to build on ground there that is at risk from flooding? That will cause serious difficulties for civil contingency planning in that region.
Mr. Alexander: I will certainly pass on the hon. Gentleman's concerns directly to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. I would, however, point out that he raises an important point in recognising that the Civil Contingencies Bill before the House at this stage does address the issue of flooding and will afford greater security to those affected by flooding in future by putting in place an appropriate framework of civil protection in this country.
Mr. Barry Gardiner (Brent, North) (Lab): Has my hon. Friend identified the need for an isolation unit in
the region of Heathrow airport and the Greater London area to deal with a potential outbreak of, say, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or a bio-terrorist alert? Will he specifically consider the case for the Lister unit at the Northwick Park site as a suitable place for dealing such contingencies?
Mr. Alexander: I recognise my hon. Friend as a fearless champion of local interests in his own constituency. I can assure him that, consistent with the lead Government Department principle, the Department of Health continues to review the Government's approach to exactly the sort of issues that he has identified. I will ensure that my hon. Friend's comments are passed directly to the Department of Health.
Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): Does the Minister realise that the police are so stretched that they have had to reach a gentleman's agreement with Group 4 to back them up in an emergency? Why does he continue to reject our idea of setting up an emergency volunteer reserve to call on the skills of our people, and when will the Government take civil contingencies seriously?
Mr. Alexander: I would, of course, point out that there are more police on the streets of Britain now than under the previous Administration. I would also point out that, if we look back to the last Budget of April 2003, we will find that an additional £330 million was awarded over three years for counter-terrorism projects in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office and the Home Office. The Government clearly take civil contingencies planning seriously, which is why we introduced the Bill and why the extra resources were committed.
Fishing Industry
24. Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD): When the Strategy Unit will publish its report on the UK fishing industry. [152267]
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Douglas Alexander): The strategy unit's fisheries project was announced on 27 March 2003. The aim is to develop a long-term strategy for the sustainable future of the UK marine fishing industry. The report will be published shortly.
Mr. Carmichael : I must tell the Minister that I am disappointed—as are many of my constituents—that we still have no date for the publication of this overdue report. If he or the researchers preparing the report listened to people in fishing communities, they would know that those communities are in crisis. We need a strategy that goes beyond tinkering around the edges of the common fisheries policy—and we need it soon. Can we have the report soon?
Mr. Alexander: That is exactly why the strategy unit has taken that long-term view. As the hon. Gentleman is interested in the unit's emerging thinking on the matter, I remind him that a conference was held in Newcastle on 1 October last year. The results were
published on the website. With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, however, I suggest that he address his concerns to one of the members of the steering board—the Scottish Executive's Liberal Democrat Minister for Environment and Rural Development, who has responsibility for fisheries.
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster (Hastings and Rye) (Lab): I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work with the strategy unit, which is so important for fishermen on the south coast. The unit has not yet reported, so will my
hon. Friend look at what is happening on the south coast? Cod numbers are enormous there, but the fish cannot be caught because they are considered to belong to the North sea.
Mr. Alexander: The fishing industry supports about 11,200 people in England, so it is not a matter of concern only to hon. Members with Scottish constituencies. I shall be happy to pass on my hon. Friend's remarks to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
WMD Intelligence Review Committee
12.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement. First, I apologise to the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), and to the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), as the notice of the text of this statement that I was able to give them was slightly shorter than usual, for reasons that I think that they will understand.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has decided to establish a committee to review intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. This committee will be composed of Privy Councillors. It will have the following terms of reference: to investigate the intelligence coverage available in respect of WMD programmes in countries of concern and on the global trade in WMD, taking into account what is now known about these programmes; as part of this work, to investigate the accuracy of intelligence on Iraqi WMD up to March 2003, and to examine any discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the Government before the conflict, and between that intelligence and what has been discovered by the Iraq survey group since the end of the conflict; and to make recommendations to the Prime Minister for the future on the gathering, evaluation and use of intelligence on WMD, in the light of the difficulties of operating in countries of concern.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has asked the committee to report before the summer recess.
The committee will follow the precedent in terms of procedures of the Franks committee. It will have access to all intelligence reports and assessments and other relevant Government papers, and will be able to call witnesses to give oral evidence in private. The committee will work closely with the US inquiry and the Iraq survey group.
The committee will submit its final conclusions to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in a form for publication, along with any classified recommendations and material. The Government will, of course, co-operate fully with the committee.
The members of the committee will be Lord Butler of Brockwell, who will be the chairman, Sir John Chilcot, and Field Marshal Lord Inge. It will also include two senior Members of this House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), and the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates), who will be made a Privy Councillor [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."].
In settling the terms of the inquiry and its membership, there have of course been discussions with the leaders of the two main Opposition parties. I regret, however, that the leader of the Liberal Democrat party has declined to support the inquiry. That, and that alone, explains why no senior member of the Liberal Democrats is a member of the committee.
As the House will be well aware, there have already been three inquiries into aspects of the Iraq war. The first, established in early May last year, was conducted
by the Intelligence and Security Committee. It considered in some detail the intelligence received in London, and its assessment and use, including in the dossier. It reported to Parliament on 9 September.The second report, by the Foreign Affairs Committee, was established on 3 June last year, against the background of the controversy surrounding the Andrew Gilligan report on the "Today" programme on 29 May. It made its report to this House on 7 July. The third report was the judicial inquiry by Lord Hutton, which was established following the death of Dr. David Kelly. It, of course, reported last Wednesday. Although the terms of reference of the three inquiries varied, a central theme of each was whether the Government had acted improperly or dishonestly in using the intelligence available to them. Echoing the conclusions of the earlier reports and in categorical terms, Lord Hutton was emphatic last week that such allegations were unfounded. The new inquiry, obviously, will not revisit the issues so comprehensively covered by Lord Hutton.
While those inquiries were under way, three proposals were put before the House in June, July and late October on Opposition motions calling for wider inquiries into aspects of the Government's handling of events in the run-up to the Iraq war. At the time, the Government resisted those calls, including on the ground that the inquiries already under way should be allowed to complete their work. Later, both the Prime Minister and I also referred to the continuing activities of the Iraq survey group.
Over the past week, we have seen the publication of the Hutton report and the evidence of Dr. David Kay, former head of the Iraq survey group, to a US congressional committee. It has also emerged that the Iraq survey group may take longer to produce a final report than we had all originally envisaged. All that has led the Government now to judge that it is appropriate to establish this new inquiry of Privy Councillors. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] Lord Hutton dealt conclusively with the grave charge against the Government that we had in some way acted improperly or dishonestly in the preparation of intelligence put before the House and the public. The Government recognise—and always have—that there are wider and entirely legitimate concerns about the reliability of the original intelligence, which have been heightened by Dr. Kay's evidence. When he gave evidence before the US Congress last week, on 28 January, he repeatedly emphasised his continued support for the decision to take military action against Iraq and his belief still today that Iraq was in clear and material violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1441. He stated also:
- "Prior to the war, my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction. I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war—certainly the French President Chirac—referred to Iraq's possession of WMD. The German intelligence certainly believed that there was WMD."
- "It turns out we were all wrong probably, in my judgement, and that is most disturbing."
There are other concerns too, so we have judged it prudent for this inquiry to consider those wider issues—as set out in its terms of reference. But of course a great focus of the committee's work will be on Iraq—rightly so. It is, however, important to remind ourselves of the significance and limits of the use of intelligence in relation to Iraq. The September dossier made a powerful case for the world to take notice of Iraq. It did not make a case for military action. As the record shows, the case for military action was fundamentally based upon Iraq's breach of UNSCR 1441. [Interruption.] Iraq had used WMD against its own people and against its neighbour, Iran. Saddam Hussein had invaded two of Iraq's neighbours, leading to the deaths of 1 million people. For 12 years after the Iraqi army was expelled from Kuwait, Saddam Hussein defied repeated United Nations resolutions calling for him to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors to dismantle WMD programmes. Resolution 1441 unanimously found Iraq in material breach of previous resolutions and offered it a final opportunity to comply fully and immediately with UN inspectors, or to face "serious consequences". The head of the UN inspectors, Dr. Hans Blix, published on 7 March last year a 173-page document listing the unresolved issues in respect of Iraq's WMD programmes—a document that I placed before the House in a Command Paper some days later.
All that painted a compelling picture. As the Prime Minister and I have said repeatedly, it would have been gravely irresponsible not to have acted against this. We took the right decision in agreeing to military action against Iraq and it is still, in my judgment, the right decision today.
For the sake of completeness, it may be helpful to give a more rounded picture of Dr. Kay's evidence to Congress last week. These are some of the things that he said:
- "I think when we have the complete record you're going to discover that after 1998 it"—
- "became a regime that was totally corrupt. Individuals were out for their own protection. And in a world where we know others are seeking WMD, the likelihood at some point in the future of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country than even we anticipated with what may turn out not to be a fully accurate estimate."
- "All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other than that Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with regard to weapons of mass destruction."
- "I think you will have, when you get the final Iraq Survey Group report, pretty compelling evidence that Saddam had the intention of continuing the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction when the opportunity arose."
Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding work of the British intelligence agencies around the world, often in difficult and hostile conditions. This inquiry is emphatically not a challenge to that vital work, nor to the dedication and professionalism of the people who work in those agencies; but what the inquiry should do is to help the Government better to evaluate and assess the information that they provide.
The decision that the House took 10 months ago to go to war was justified given the defiance of a regime that uniquely had used weapons of mass destruction and had refused for so long to comply with obligations unanimously imposed upon it by the United Nations Security Council. That is a decision for which we, as elected representatives in this House, took responsibility and for which we will continue to take responsibility. We cannot subcontract that responsibility to any inquiry, however distinguished, but I believe that Lord Butler and his colleagues will be able to perform a most valuable service to the House and to the country and I express my appreciation to them.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |