The "General Belgrano" (Hansard, 13 November 1984)

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne)
My Lords, rules of engagement are classified guidelines issued to operational commanders and changes were not communicated to the Argentine Government or the United Nations Security Council. The change in rules of engagement on 2nd May 1982 which permitted the attack on the Argentine cruiser "General Belgrano" outside the total exclusion zone fell within the scope of the warning which was sent to the Argentine Government on 23rd April and which was communicated to the United Nations Security Council on 24th April.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the purpose of this and other questions is not about whether the "General Belgrano" should have been sunk but about the honesty among public figures to Parliament and to the public? Is it not the case that the Ministry of Defence was asked to disclose why there was this delay in communicating the change in the rules of engagement from 2nd May to 7th May to the Argentine Government and to the United Nations the following day, 8th May? Is it not also a fact that the information concerning this delay was already in the Library of another place but that it was not communicated to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of another place? Is it not further the case that both the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General of that time expressed concern in writing about both the morality and the international legality of this change in the rules of engagement?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, as I said in the original Answer, changes to the rules of engagement do not fall to be notified either to the Argentine Government or to the United Nations. The noble Lord's questions do not therefore arise.

§ Lord Annan
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that to have communicated changes in the rules of engagement would have been an act of military and naval folly and, if they had been communicated either 208 to the Argentine Government or to the United States forces, this would have endangered our own task force? Would the noble Lord agree that this continual quest to cover the face of the Prime Minister with slime is becoming odious in the sight of most people who, having heard these arguments, realise now that there was nothing whatsoever wrong in the action which her Majesty's Government took regarding this cruiser?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I agree entirely with him.

Lord Paget of Northampton
My Lords, why do we go on with this nonsense? Since when has our Royal Navy required permission to sink the enemy? What the hell do we keep a Royal Navy for?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord's question would be heard by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and by that honourable gentleman in another place.

§ Lord Hankey
My Lords—

Several noble Lords
Order! Grimond!

§ Lord Grimond
My Lords, before we leave this Question—apparently in some disorder—which I shall be very glad to do, may we take it from what the noble Lord the Minister has said today that one point, which I have been doubtful about in my own mind, has been cleared up: that the original exclusion zone was no guarantee to Argentina that if they remained outside it they would not be attacked? Indeed, it was not communicated to them. Are we to take it that it was simply an instruction to our own commanders that they should not attack Argentine ships outside the exclusion zone without the approval of their political masters?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the establishment of the exclusion zones—first, the maritime exclusion zone and later the total exclusion zone—was related initially to ensuring that the Argentine forces were not resupplied and, later, to the arrangements for the repossession of the Falkland Islands. As to the noble Lord's question about Argentine vessels being attacked inside or outside the exclusion zones, I would invite him to study the words of the advice that we gave to the Security Council on these matters. I shall arrange for the noble Lord to receive a copy.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, is it not the case that the Government did notify the Argentine Government of the fact that they had changed the rules of engagement on, I believe, 7th May? Since they did so notify the Government, why was it that the Government found it necessary to do so, and why did they do so so late in the day?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, rules of engagement are confidential matters not conveyed to the Argentinians, nor to anyone else.

§ Lord Hankey
My Lords, have the people who ask these questions not forgotten the fact that the 209 Argentines gave us no notification that they were going to attack the Falklands without provocation and also invade South Georgia? What is the relationship between those actions and international law such as that to which the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, referred?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, that comparison had occurred to me and I am grateful to the noble Lord for reminding me of it.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, is my noble friend aware of any orders to the commander of the "General Belgrano" which precluded that vessel from taking hostile action? If not, what on earth does an exclusion zone or a change in the rules of engagement have to do with the matter?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, my noble friend has again put his finger on the matter, if I may say so. The reason the "General Belgrano" was attacked was of course that she posed a threat to units of the British Task Force.

Viscount St. Davids
My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that the Argentine itself had certain rights and that it had taken to itself the right to sink our craft at any point in the seas—certainly not restricted to the exclusion zone? Does he not agree that the "General Belgrano" intended to sink any British ship it could find—even outside that zone—and that the Argentines themselves have never claimed that we were wrong to sink their ship at any point in the sea? They believed it to be quite right. Why should we bother so much?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the noble Viscount is quite correct. Indeed, it was an Argentinian Admiral who said just that on a television programme.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, if the noble Lord is maintaining the Answer he gave to my original Question and thereby ducking my supplementary questions, how does he square his Answer with the evidence given by the present Minister of Defence to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in another place just last week, when the question of the rules of engagement was answered by the present Minister of Defence? In view of the now admitted fact that Parliament and the public have been misled—perhaps through ignorance—by the Prime Minister and other Ministers on the whole of this issue, is it not time that the Government followed the advice of many leading Members of their own party and published a White Paper giving both Parliament and the public a true account of the facts?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is now flogging a dead horse. All the questions he has posed today and on previous occasions have been answered in your Lordships' House and in another place time and time again.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, the Minister has not answered one of the questions I have asked—

Noble Lords
Order!

The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he has answered this question so many times that even the popular as well as the what is called the rather respectable press has not got his name down in the newspapers as "Lord Trefgarno" for some reason? Is he aware also that all sides of the House and certainly these Benches—and I speak as a naval chaplain—feel that he should be allowed to return to his other naval duties in the MoD, which he conducts with great diligence and great acclaim?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am greatly obliged to the right reverend Prelate.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, the noble Lord has refused to answer a single one of my questions, not one of which has ever before been asked in this House. May I ask him at least to extend to the House, if not to me, the courtesy of answering the specific questions which arise from the statements and documents made and written by his own Government, and not attempt to duck away from them, as he has done this afternoon?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I invite the noble Lord to study the answers I have already given this afternoon and on previous occasions.