Commons Sitting of 18 May 1998

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  DEFENCE
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  DEFENCE

    Satellite Television (Ships)
    Mr. Jim Murphy: If he will make a statement on the availability of satellite television facilities on board Royal Navy ships. [41295]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): While most Royal Navy ships enjoy a publicly funded capability to receive satellite television when alongside, only the carriers are also capable of receiving it at sea. In view of the beneficial effects on morale, I have directed that we should explore the possibility of making such facilities available on all royal naval ships at sea.
    Mr. Murphy: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. He will be aware that, recently, I graduated from the armed forces parliamentary scheme; part of that process involved serving with HMS Newcastle. I was struck by the impact of satellite television on the morale of the men on HMS Newcastle, so I was very pleased to hear my hon. Friend's comment today. Will he keep me, and the other people who are involved in the armed forces parliamentary scheme, informed of the detail of the negotiations, so that we can improve the morale of men and women serving on our ships? Many of them go to sea for six months or more and return to a very changed world. The lack of connection, day by day, to satellite television has a detrimental effect.
    Dr. Reid: I congratulate my hon. Friend on achieving his fellowship of the armed forces parliamentary scheme—a scheme that I thoroughly recommend to all hon. Members. Places are now open for next year.
    I believe that access to satellite television on Royal Naval ships would have a tremendous effect on morale. The subject has been raised with me, not only by my hon. Friend, but by several ratings during a recent visit to Fearless. It is too early to assess whether it is feasible to provide such facilities, but I hope that, if it is, it will be seen as a welcome boost for morale from a Government who truly care about the welfare of our service personnel.
    Mr. John Wilkinson: I do not dispute in any sense the potential benefit to morale of satellite television, but would not morale on Her Majesty's ships be best encouraged by ensuring that those vessels have a full capability to fight and win? In that context, can the Minister tell us whether real progress has been made in getting the anti-air weapon system for the horizon 2000 common new generation frigates into service at the time expected and to specification?
    Dr. Reid: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I believe that it would be of tremendous value to morale on Her Majesty's ships and throughout the armed forces if we managed to remedy the dreadful shortfall in all three services that we were left by the previous Government. He can be assured that that is a top priority for me, and if we can get full manning on ships as well as satellite television, that would be a bonus. Discussions on the equipment for the horizon 2000 common new generation frigate project are continuing, and the hon. Gentleman can be sure that we shall proceed with them as speedily as is in our power.
    Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: Does my hon. Friend agree that morale was truly lifted with the change of Government? I believe that that has been the main boost to the armed forces.
    Dr. Reid: I can give my shortest answer today: yes on both counts.
    Sir George Young: Are satellite television facilities available on board HMS Cornwall, and might an analysis of their use shed light on its role? Why has the Secretary of State not answered my question, tabled a week ago, about the role of HMS Cornwall? Was not the Prime Minister wrong to imply that, somehow, HMS Cornwall was responsible for the favourable outcome in Sierra Leone?
    Dr. Reid: It is perhaps just as well that satellite television is not available, because if it were, I am sure that the crew would be more than upset by the aspersions that are sometimes cast on their activities—although not by my party. HMS Cornwall was deployed to Sierra Leone after the junta had been ousted to provide humanitarian assistance for the people, to support diplomatic efforts there, and to assist the return of the British high commissioner.
    HMS Cornwall did a fantastic job in Sierra Leone; she helped to save countless lives, and the country should be proud of what she achieved. Her helicopter transport lifted 10 tonnes of food, 3.5 tonnes of medical stores and 1 tonne of general stores. The crew helped to repair and reopen the children's hospital and school, and the port in Freetown. We should all be grateful for and proud of what HMS Cornwall did.

    Defence Diversification
    Mr. Syd Rapson: When the consultation period on the Government's Green Paper on defence diversification ends. [41296]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Spellar): The consultation period on our Green Paper on defence diversification ended on 8 May, and we are now considering the comments received.
    Mr. Rapson: I thank my hon. Friend for that comprehensive reply. Is he aware that the Green Paper has been widely welcomed by the business community in Hampshire, and especially by my constituents in Portsmouth? Lockheed Martin, which has substantial interests in the Astor and Merlin military programmes, is particularly interested in developments. What will the next stage of the process be? What can I tell my constituents about how the ideas in the Green Paper will evolve?
    Mr. Spellar: I congratulate my hon. Friend on being an excellent spokesman for the defence industry and the armed forces in his area; and on the considerable period that he worked for the Ministry of Defence there. Like him, we have been pleased by the responses to the Green Paper; we are considering them at the moment, and consulting other Government Departments. We need to take into account the outcome of the strategic defence review, and I hope that we shall be able to make an announcement on diversification before the summer recess.

    Staffordshire Regiment
    Mr. Michael Fabricant: If he will make a statement concerning the continuing role of the 3 battalion of the Staffordshire Regiment. [41297]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): The third battalion of the Staffordshire Regiment is currently allocated to a national defence role. The future role of all arms and services within the Territorial Army will be decided as part of the strategic defence review. It is too early to say how individual units may be affected by the outcome of the review.
    Mr. Fabricant: Although a number of people will realise that the strategic defence review is not yet completed, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the third battalion of the Staffordshire regiment, a Territorial Army battalion and regiment, is suffering from morale that is not as high as it ought to be? He will know that it is one of the few county regiments left in the country. Can he offer the battalion any encouragement by saying that it will not be disbanded or greatly reduced in size?
    Dr. Reid: The Government want to make the future of the TA as valuable to this country as its past has been. We firmly believe that the way in which to do that is to make the TA relevant and usable, ready and available, and integrated with the other defence forces. Those principles will guide our approach to the Territorial Army, and to all the other services, regular and reserve.
    Ms Rachel Squire: As the possibility of a massive Russian land invasion of western Europe and the United Kingdom now seems remote, is it not only right that the strategic defence review should reconsider the role of the battalion mentioned by the hon.
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    Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), and of the other regular and reserve forces? Does the Minister further agree, given the outstanding commitment and ability of many of our reserve forces in the TA, the maritime volunteer service and elsewhere, that they should be given an enhanced role under the SDR? Might that not be achieved by the formation of smaller, specialist units which could offer the logistical, technical and medical support that is much needed by our regular forces?
    Dr. Reid: I agree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend and with her specific points. Those who seek to cast the Territorial Army in stone in the form in which it was created to face the threat during the cold war do it no service. That is the way in which to create a Territorial Army that is irrelevant to future threats. The Government seek to make the Territorial Army more usable, relevant and integrated, and to make sure that its future is as glorious as its past service to the country.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the Minister acknowledge that in the Territorial Army, there is a considerable crisis of morale, not least because of reports suggesting that its numbers may be reduced to as few as 40,000? In the light of the problems of recruitment and hence of undermanning, will the proposals in the strategic defence review take account of the contribution made by Territorial Army soldiers to operations such as Bosnia? Is the Minister aware, for example, that 11 soldiers of the Scottish Yeomanry are deploying on 27 May to the Light Dragoons in Bosnia in order to make up the numbers? Does not that emphasise the importance of the Territorials as a ready reserve to ensure that units conducting such operations are fully manned?
    Dr. Reid: The hon. and learned Gentleman points out that the Territorial Army has been used to plug gaps in the Regular Army because of the deficiency in numbers there that we inherited. I am pleased to pay tribute to that. However, it would do no service to the Territorial Army to make its future success depend on the previous Government's failure to recruit to the Regular Army. We want to make sure that the Territorial Army is free standing, yet integrated. We believe that we can create a modern, relevant and usable Territorial Army. That will be a much better safeguard of its future than merely regarding it as being on the substitutes' bench for those who are not present in the Regular Army.

    London District Rifle Association
    Mr. Julian Brazier: If he will list the Regular and Territorial units in the London District Rifle Association meeting in April by order of their team totals, starting with the winner. [41298]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): I have placed in the Library of the House a list of the Regular and Territorial Army units in the London District Rifle Association meeting in April, by order of their team totals. I offer my congratulations to the London Regiment 5th, which carried the day with a team total of 3,637 points.
    Mr. Brazier: Can the Minister confirm that the three Territorial Army infantry battalions easily outshot their

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    six regular counterparts? In the same week, an American National Guard armoured battalion easily defeated its regular counterparts in a tough trial in the Nevada desert. Is it not time that we recognised that the best and most cost-effective role for reservists is in combat?
    Dr. Reid: I confirm what the hon. Gentleman says. From memory, I think that four out of the first five teams were Territorial Army units, which proves what all of us know: that we have some extremely high-quality people in the Territorial Army. That is all the more reason to make sure that the role that we shape for those high-quality people is not one that died with the cold war, but one that is relevant and usable in future exercises and operations, and can meet any future threat that we may face.

    Army Barracks
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: What spare capacity there is within Army barracks. [41299]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Spellar): An overall estimate of the spare capacity in Army barracks could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Where spare capacity exists, we seek to reduce it wherever possible.
    Mr. Swayne: In my experience, there is little spare capacity. Does the Minister therefore agree that the British Army of the Rhine is better left where it is?
    Mr. Spellar: The hon. Gentleman knows that the location of forces is considered in the strategic defence review. That is under consideration by the Cabinet, and the outcome will be announced in a White Paper in due course.
    Sir George Young: Does not the exchange on this question and earlier ones underline the need to complete the strategic defence review as soon as possible? The Secretary of State sent it off to his colleagues at the end of March. If it is not Treasury-driven, as we are repeatedly assured, what is holding up publication, and when shall we see it?
    Mr. Spellar: As the right hon. Gentleman knows from his own experience, those matters are being considered fully in the round. The strategic defence review is foreign-policy-driven: it is not driven by incremental salami slicing, like the previous Government's so-called reviews. The matters are being considered properly. It is not the back-of-an-envelope stuff designed to justify cuts that we saw from the previous Government.

    Defence Medical Services
    Laura Moffatt: If he will make a statement on the current state of the defence medical services. [41300]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): We are concerned about shortfalls in manpower and operational medical equipment, which were inherited from the previous Government. We are
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    addressing that as a matter of urgency and will announce our proposals to remedy the situation as part of the strategic defence review.
    Laura Moffatt: Does the Secretary of State remember the Defence Committee report on defence medical services that outlined clearly how the services felt downgraded? The Committee found that services were deteriorating, that morale was very low—which we saw clearly for ourselves on an earlier visit to Bosnia—and that people were looking to the new Labour Government to do something about that. Will the Secretary of State give proper recognition to that report through the strategic defence review?
    Mr. Robertson: Yes, we will. My hon. Friend, who is not only a member of the current Defence Committee but a nurse, knows precisely the damage that can be done to morale in areas such as defence medical services. The report to which she referred, which was produced unanimously by a Tory-dominated Select Committee in the previous Parliament, states:
    "We conclude that the staff shortages in the Defence Medical Services are so serious that it is not clear whether it will recover. It is possible that the military ethos of medicine in the regular armed forces has been destroyed. It seems incredible that the scaling down of the Defence Medical Services has been effected by MOD in such a manner as to allow a major and potentially critical staff shortage to develop."
    The new Government have made it a principle priority of the Ministry of Defence to get to grips with the dilemma that was left to us. I am absolutely committed to ensuring that, if we send troops into battle, they will have proper medical back-up.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: I wish the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues every success in tackling the extremely difficult problem of maintaining properly trained staff in the defence medical services who are capable of dealing with battle casualties, as well as fulfilling their primary role of looking after the troops in peace time. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is extremely important that health service trusts are prepared to release for military operations their highly trained and skilled nursing staff who are also members of the Territorial Army? Has he made representations to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health to assess whether the system is working well?
    Mr. Robertson: I assure the hon. Gentleman, who had responsibility in this area under the previous Government, that that is precisely what we are doing. The defence medical services cannot survive or thrive without active co-operation from the national health service. We are not seeking to duplicate the national health service, but there are specific needs in the defence field that cannot be met by the NHS. Therefore, the exercise that we are conducting as a key priority of the strategic defence review will ascertain how best current health service resources can be mobilised in times of conflict to ensure that our fundamental obligation as a Ministry, a Government and a Parliament is to those whom we might send into the field. The risk to their health and life should be of paramount importance.
    Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware of another reference to defence medical

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    services in the Defence Committee report that he mentioned? The report said that defence medical services were in such a state that
    "A choice would have to be made between sending troops without proper medical support or only sending the limited number of troops who could be supported."
    Will he join me in condemning the Conservative party for failing to deal with the situation in our defence medical services, and will he promise urgent action to tackle that problem?
    Mr. Robertson: I can do both. I am not content with simply condemning the previous Government—frankly, most of their members have been forgotten, although their legacy lingers on. They paid a heavy price for some of the calamitous decisions that they took, especially in areas such as defence medical services. We must get to grips with that problem because we shall be judged on it. I am determined that the Government will be judged as putting the priority of looking after battle casualties above practically every other priority in the defence field. I am confident that we shall be able to do that.

    War Crimes (Former Yugoslavia)
    Mr. John Heppell: What progress has been made by British forces in detaining persons indicted for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia since 1 May 1997. [41302]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): Since 1 May 1997, seven people indicted for war crimes have been detained in Bosnia by the stabilisation force. Six of these detentions took place in the British-commanded sector and involved British forces, either directly or in support. A further 15 indictees have surrendered voluntarily to the international criminal tribunal in The Hague.
    Mr. Heppell: Will my right hon. Friend join me in applauding the efforts of our forces in Bosnia? I am sure that that sentiment is shared by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is necessary to continue to bring the guilty men to justice? Without justice, there is no chance of reconciliation and peace in Bosnia.
    Mr. Robertson: My hon. Friend is right. I congratulate those whose courage and dedication have led to the capture of those whom I have spoken about. The reality of the tragic country of Bosnia is that bringing those who have been indicted for war crimes to justice is not easy. The process is not simple and it involves huge risks, as the exercise at Prijedor last July amply proved. However, as my hon. Friend rightly says, there will not be a proper or lasting peace in the former Yugoslavia unless those who were responsible for the most heinous crimes in that part of the world in the past decade are eventually brought to The Hague to face justice.
    Mr. Martin Bell: Will the Secretary of State give the House an assurance that all relevant information gathered in this country over the past six years, including information from radio intercepts, will be made available as required to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and that nothing will be held back?
    Mr. Robertson: We co-operate fully with the international criminal tribunal on the former Yugoslavia
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    at The Hague. We shall give it all the assistance that we can in future. Indeed, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General visited The Hague earlier this month to open a new court room, which has been funded by the British Government.
    During one of the first Question Times in which I participated, having taken up the office of Secretary of State for Defence, I made it clear that one of the Government's commitments was to bring to justice those who had been indicted of these horrifying and almost unbelievable crimes. The fact that six detentions have taken place in the British-led sector is an indication that, when I announced our resolve, we had every intention of carrying it out. We have been shown to have done so.
    Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Does the Secretary of State agree that the ultimate aim in Bosnia must be to establish stable institutions that are based on democracy and the rule of law? Does the right hon. Gentleman also agree that to achieve that, it is essential that the people who have committed such dreadful crimes against humanity are rounded up and brought properly to trial, and if found guilty, are sentenced? It should be a fundamental aim of the stabilisation force and its successor force to achieve that.
    Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is right, and that is precisely what we are doing. However, I underline the risks, problems and dangers that are involved. From a long way away—in circumstances that are a million miles from the sort of environment in which our troops operate—it is simple to say that we should bring the war criminals to justice. Within the mandate that has been laid down, British troops operating with the stabilisation force have done the dangerous job that the world community expects of them. I think that everyone recognises now that we are trying to fulfil that obligation.
    I have read some of the indictments relating to some of those who have been apprehended by British troops. They are horrifying; they are stomach-turning. Indeed, some of them would be classified as pornography in their present form. That is a sign of how necessary it is for that part of the world and others to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice as quickly as possible.

    Aldershot Garrison
    Mr. Gerald Howarth: If he will make a statement on the future of the Aldershot garrison. [41303]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): The strategic defence review has examined all aspects of defence. No final decisions have been taken, and although I cannot speculate about the outcome, I can assure the hon. Member that there will continue to be a significant Army presence in Aldershot.
    Mr. Howarth: I am grateful to the Minister for part of that reply. As he is aware, the delay in bringing forth the strategic defence review is causing great concern in Aldershot, not just among military personnel, who do not know whether they will have to move—I hope that the Parachute Regiment will stay—but in the town, where there are deprivation problems. I hope that the Minister will complete the review as quickly as possible so that all

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    the uncertainty can be limited. Can he assure me that, once the review is finished, Aldershot will still be able to claim to be the home of the British Army?
    Dr. Reid: As regards the timing, it is better to get these matters right than to rush. At least some of the problems that we face are caused by the mess made in a number of areas by the Treasury-led reviews which were driven through under the previous Government.
    I am pleased to assure the hon. Gentleman that there will continue to be a significant presence at Aldershot. We intend to ensure that all elements of the armed forces are usable, relevant and tied in to operations in the future, which is what we seek for the Parachute Regiment. The hon. Gentleman will know that HQ 4 Division and HQ 5 Airborne Brigade, as well as many other units, are based in Aldershot, and he can be assured that there will be a continuing Army presence for him and his constituents.
    Mr. Robert Key: We understand the Minister's embarrassment at being unable to answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). The House is getting pretty fed up with non-answers to questions. The Minister has been unable to answer more than half the questions on the Order Paper this afternoon and has referred instead to the outcome of the defence review. It simply is not good enough. It is affecting this country's entire military credibility, the defence export industries, and the health, economy, housing and local plans of Aldershot and many other garrison towns.
    We expect shortly to hear that the review is complete, but will the Minister please answer some of the questions? In particular, will he answer my hon. Friend's question on Aldershot, not by blaming the previous Government and saying that we must wait a few more months, but by telling us exactly where the defence review is now?
    Dr. Reid: I am not in the least embarrassed. If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about what the House is fed up with, he should know that it is fed up with the continual vacuous and banal statements by the Opposition. After 10 months' debate, which has involved all three services and ranged from the screws that we put on small battleships to the deployment of aircraft carriers and vast jets, and force planning assumptions, all that we have had from the Opposition is three debates on the Territorial Army because they think that there is cheap popularity in them. We would welcome a contribution from the Opposition.
    I have already made it clear that there will be a continuing substantial Army presence in Aldershot. As regards the paras, we will continue to do what we have been doing with all other elements of our forces—ensure that they are relevant and usable in the future, in the course of our foreign-policy-led review.

    New Deal
    Mr. Brian Jenkins: What contribution his Department is making to the Government's new deal initiative. [41305]
    Mr. Lawrie Quinn: What contribution his Department is making to the Government's new deal initiative. [41309]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): My Department is committed to and is continuing to play a full part in contributing to the new deal. The armed forces are working closely with the new deal personal advisers and the further education colleges to identify, at the gateway stage, what self-development is required to make young people more confident and self-reliant. We are also committed to offering new deal opportunities whenever civilian recruitment campaigns are run.
    Mr. Jenkins: I thank my right hon. Friend for that full answer. Will he point out the many opportunities available to our young people in the services and also give me, the House, young people and, more important, our armed forces, an assurance that every young person allocated a place in the scheme will be a volunteer and that no force whatever will be used? Will he oppose the suggestion in one of the Sunday papers that the scheme is a back-door way to national service?
    Mr. Robertson: I can give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance that the armed forces are and will remain volunteer organisations. There is no question of utilising the new deal as a method of press-ganging people into the armed forces.
    The three armed forces offer worthwhile, satisfying and profoundly rewarding careers for young people. If I had been answering Question No.1, I should have pointed out that we have turned a corner in the recruiting position in the British Army and are at last making inroads into the shortfall. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, who is in the lead on the matter, has done a superb job in the past 12 months. Young people are coming to our armed forces and we hope that, through the brief taster experiences under the new deal, which is opening new vistas for thousands of young people who for 18 years were denied hope or vision for the future, their eyes will be opened to the possibilities of a good career serving their country.
    Mr. Quinn: Will my right hon. Friend please say whether suppliers and contractors who support our armed forces and his Department have proposals to help with the new deal and to encourage young people to get into the broader side of the defence industry?
    Mr. Robertson: We always hope that Ministry of Defence suppliers will be among those involved in best practice in every field. We shall encourage those in the defence industry to participate in what is an enriching experience, not only for young people, but for companies and for the country. Many people forget that the defence industry employs 440,000 people at the cutting edge of technology and of success for the nation. Companies that are so successful should clearly recognise the benefits of getting young people through their doors by way of the new deal.
    Mr. Crispin Blunt: May I press on the Secretary of State the fact that the armed forces would be able to take part in the new deal initiative with a great deal more certainty if they had the results of the strategic defence review to hand? The Ministry of Defence's proposals on, for example, elements such as the Royal Armoured Corps are an open secret among its members,

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    as is virtually the rest of the package that has gone forward to the Government. As the Treasury was involved in the teams that were assessing the MOD's strategic defence review inside the MOD when it was going on, what is the delay? Members of the armed forces have every reason to suspect that the package will be unpicked by the Treasury. He will understand that, if it is unpicked in one degree, the whole package will begin to fall apart.
    Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman was inside the MOD acting as an adviser to Ministers and, by gosh, saw precisely what was happening in there. There were not Treasury people inside the MOD; there were MOD people inside the Treasury and they were being told how much to cut. We are carrying out a policy-led review based on the strategic interests of this country. Whatever the hon. Gentleman thinks he has seen in the leaks, I can assure him that he has not seen the definitive outcome of the report. When he does, he will see something that is radical and sensible and designed to do what the Conservative Government never had the courage or guts to do: look at the future, not the past, and reconfigure our forces radically. When the Government are ready to announce the report, it and the White Paper will be issued.
    Mr. Andrew Robathan: Does the Secretary of State agree that the purpose of the armed forces is the defence of the realm, and that they have been doing a good job of that in the recent past? While we all wish the recruiting initiative through new deal well, will he ensure that standards are maintained so that the armed forces do not suffer as a result of having to take poor quality recruits to make the new deal successful? Did he see the report in yesterday's newspapers that the paras, for one, are dropping their standards so that they can up their recruiting figures, the result of which is a reduction in effectiveness?
    Mr. Robertson: I saw the report and I thought that it was utter nonsense. It was an insult to the fine people in that regiment, who do not deserve such glib anecdotes being thrown at them. Even if it were true, it could hardly reflect the experience of simply one 12-month period. The attack, if that is what it was, is not just on the Government but on the previous Minister for the Armed Forces. I do not think that such an accusation would stick on the Government or on the Opposition. The professionalism of the armed forces will be maintained, although we may find other ways to get there.
    Speaking of standards, today's Evening Standard contains an article by Mr. Christopher Hudson. It states:
    "the reality is quite different. The British Army remains the single most universally admired of all British institutions. It possesses a worldwide reputation for discipline and professionalism. From the Falklands War to their peacekeeping role in Bosnia, our armed services have acquitted themselves with distinction."
    That is absolutely right, although Mr. Hudson may have other prescriptions with which I do not agree. We will maintain it as it is.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: New deal or not, does it help young men to join the armed forces when they reflect on how Guardsman Fisher and Guardsman Wright have been treated?
    Mr. Robertson: My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces met representatives of the campaign for
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    the two guardsmen whom my hon. Friend mentions and has mentioned in the past. The matter is not for the Ministry of Defence; the decision is in the hands of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I know that she is well aware of the sentiments in the country, and my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will apprise her of his meeting last week. It is for her to make the decision within the long-established framework.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: Before the Secretary of State gets too carried away with the overblown hoo-hah of his own rhetoric, will he reflect on the fact that the person who criticised the falling standards for recruitment to the Parachute Regiment was the head of the regiment's recruiting team? As newspaper articles have been quoted, let us see how the Secretary of State responds to what that man said. He said:
    "nearly half the soldiers now accepted into the Parachute Regiment, which prides itself on fitness, would have been failed five years ago.
    "The Army, facing a shortage of 5,000 recruits, was letting people slip through the net 'just to make up the numbers'".
    Is the Secretary of State proud of a development that drives the head of a recruiting team to resign from the Army to spread that message?
    Mr. Robertson: No, and I do not accept what he says. It is not borne out by the facts and it is an insult to those who serve in the regiment. I repeat that, even if it were true, the change could not simply have taken place over the past 12 months. Neither the previous Government, and certainly not this one, would lower the standards for those who are expected to serve and fight in Her Majesty's armed forces. Professionalism will be maintained, and that is recognised wherever our soldiers, sailors and air men and women are in the field of conflict. I have seen them in Bosnia, on HMS Invincible and on RAF stations in this country and abroad. Those people are among the finest and fittest in armed forces in any part of the world, and that standard will be maintained.

    Territorial Army
    Mr. Barry Sheerman: What plans he has for the modernisation of the Territorial Army. [41308]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): The strategic defence review has examined all aspects of our armed forces, including the Territorial Army. Although no final decisions have been taken, I assure the House that we will continue to need a Territorial Army that is structured for all the roles that we can plausibly foresee. Our aim is a Territorial Army that is relevant and capable, ready to serve Britain and able to meet the tasks that we set it.
    Mr. Sheerman: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is widespread support for the strategic review, because what was wanted was a careful, not rushed, appraisal of this country's real needs into the next century and that is what the Government are doing? Does he further agree that the way in which the Territorial Army will survive is by being modernised for that new role? It is not a pre-cold war or cold war situation, but a new situation, with the British Army and British armed forces taking on a different

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    strategic role. Does he also agree that part of that role involves the training of competent young men and women?
    Dr. Reid: Yes. We said that the strategic defence review would be foreign-policy-led, and it has been. We said that the service chiefs would be involved from day one and they have been. We said that every element of our forces would be subjected to scrutiny in the light of the new security context and they have been—every element, every force, regular and reserve, has been subjected to scrutiny. When the subject of the Territorial Army comes up, we should remember that it is the only section of the Army that has the freedom to express its views publicly and to lobby publicly. Although that does not in any way diminish our respect for it, we should remember that exactly the same level of scrutiny has been applied to the regular Army, to the Navy and to the Air Force. The purpose behind that scrutiny is to ensure that all services, regular and reserve, are usable, relevant and modern in the context of our security analysis.
    Mr. Keith Simpson: Following the logic of the answer to the question on the modernisation of the Territorial Army, and the logic of the answers to other questions, I find that Ministers have placed great emphasis on the fact that this is a foreign-policy-led defence review. Will the Minister now finally publish what that foreign policy baseline is, or perhaps it has been lost, like so many other things to do with the Foreign Office?
    Dr. Reid: The only thing that has been lost is the establishment figure for the armed forces, which occurred under the previous Government: between 5,500 and 7,500 soldiers in the Army were lost. That has been the inheritance of this Government. Our task is to turn that around, to stop the increase in the shortfall and to begin to get the Army, in particular, back to the level that it should have been for many years. On the foreign-policy baseline, the hon. Gentleman knows that that has been outlined time and again, not least by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in speeches, interviews and articles.

    Bosnia
    Mr. Russell Brown: How many British troops are currently stationed in Bosnia as part of NATO's multinational stabilisation force. [41310]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): Some 5,200 UK troops are currently serving in former Yugoslavia as part of the NATO-led stabilisation force. Around 3,700 are based in Bosnia, with a further 1,500 serving in Croatia. Those figures exclude routine short-term fluctuations in numbers as units arrive and depart from theatre.
    Mr. Brown: I thank the Secretary of State for that information. Does he agree that it is vital that we retain our troops in Bosnia for a period beyond the middle of this year, so that we do not return to the sort of bloodshed that pre-dated the Dayton peace agreement?
    Mr. Robertson: Yes. The UK intends to continue to play its part in any NATO-led force after the expiry of
    594
    the existing SFOR mandate in 1998. However, we must expect and hope that Bosnia and the Bosnians will take a greater role in determining their future. We do not want a dependency culture to be created on the back of international troops in that area. There have been some failures throughout this period, but NATO has had some enormous successes as well, both in stopping the fighting and creating the conditions for peace and in ensuring that civic institutions with a sustainable future are, out of the ashes, beginning to be created.
    Mr. David Tredinnick: Could the Secretary of State give some indication of the number of Territorials serving in Bosnia? If the Territorials, such as the five Leicestershire units that may be under threat, are cut, will he not have fewer reserves to draw on, when there is increasing crisis in the Army? Is that not a germane reason for thinking carefully about this proposed cut in Territorials?
    Mr. Robertson: Over 2,000 Territorial Army personnel and other reserves have served in Bosnia. At times, about 10 per cent. of troops in that area are from our reserves. I pay strong tribute to what they have done.
    We have no intention of destroying or undermining the Territorial Army or any of the reserve forces. We want to strengthen them; we want to give them a greater and more relevant role; we want to modernise them; and we want to ensure that they are useful. Those who have served in Bosnia have been an outstanding success and a great credit to this country. It is upon their experience and many other experiences that we are basing the conclusions that will appear in the defence review.

    Heavy Lift Capability
    Mr. David Kidney: If he will make a statement on Britain's current military heavy lift capability. [41311]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): Our strategic lift requirement, in terms both of airlift and sealift, has been scrutinised closely in the strategic defence review. Of course, that scrutiny has been informed by my Department's assessment of the adequacy of our currently available assets.
    Mr. Kidney: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that there has been inadequate investment in heavy lift capability in the past and that there is therefore a need for early investment? Although RAF Stafford does not have a runway, would not such an investment lead to an all-round improvement in what is already an excellent logistical support service by the RAF?
    Dr. Reid: My hon. Friend is right to say that past investment has been inadequate. Investment is now more important than ever because we live in an even more volatile and less predictable world, where power projection and our ability to react quickly and reach throughout the world are more important than ever. In short, we can no longer expect—as we could during the cold war in central Germany—the crisis to come to us. More and more often, we have to go to the crisis.

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    Therefore, there is an even greater premium on the capacity to lift our forces and the weaponry that they need, whether by sea or by air.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS
  The President of the Council was asked—
  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Threatened Plants
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: If she will set up a Select Committee to consider Her Majesty's Government's response to the publication of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources red list on threatened plants compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. [41329]
    The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Ann Taylor): I believe that this subject could come within the terms of reference of the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs, and also, possibly, the Environmental Audit Committee. I see no need for a separate Committee on the issue.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is there not at least a respectable case for a Select Committee, as at least six Departments are involved in the response to the red list? Apart from anything we may say about these botanical treasure houses becoming extinct, will my right hon. Friend comment on the study, which I have drawn to the Department's attention, by Meilleur and Phillips, which cites a figure of £9 billion, even on a commercial basis? Is there not a case for a co-ordinated response by Government, and quickly?
    Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend did draw my attention to that research. It is important that we should safeguard plant species threatened by extinction, and the United Kingdom fully contributes to its financial obligations under a number of international agreements that promote co-operation in safeguarding plants at risk of extinction. Steps have been taken to ensure that there is co-operation between Departments and that we are fully supportive of their efforts.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: I warmly endorse the point made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). Is the right hon. Lady aware that Kew and Wakehurst place—which have outstanding assets and a quality of expertise of worldwide fame—are in an exceptionally good position to play a fundamental role in the co-ordination of Government policy? The hon. Gentleman made a key point—there are too many Departments involved in trying to pull together a very disparate subject.
    Mrs. Taylor: I agree that there is a great deal of expertise in this country, but I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's criticism and his comment about the need for further co-operation. Steps have already been taken to ensure that there is co-operation between Departments. Ministers and officials want to work with the experts to whom the hon. Gentleman referred.

    Select Committees
    Mr. Barry Sheerman: What plans she has to extend the Select Committee system. [41332]
    The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Ann Taylor): It is less than a year since the Select Committee system was last extended. I therefore have no immediate plans to make further changes.
    Mr. Sheerman: I know that my hon. Friend will agree that the Select Committee system is at the very heart of our traditional role of checking the Executive. Will she encourage recently mooted developments in which Select Committees assess and give marks—even out of 10—for departmental performance? Will she also give counsel to some Select Committees—who would perhaps be better off studying some of the newer management techniques to improve their performance, rather than thinking that they had to travel around the world to discover such techniques?
    Mrs. Taylor: I agree with my hon. Friend that the Select Committees' role is a very important one. I am sure that new and experienced hon. Members alike will agree with that statement and think that the work that they do on Select Committees is extremely important. As for suggesting to Select Committees the precise inquiries that they should undertake, or whether and how they should assess departmental performance, I know that Select Committees guard their freedoms and individual rights very jealously. They might not welcome advice from myself or from others on how they should conduct themselves.
    Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I am certainly in favour of using the Select Committee system in the most effective way possible. However, does the right hon. Lady not agree that, in her Government's increasingly farcical handling of the arms to Sierra Leone affair, it was hardly a contribution to the effectiveness of Select Committees that, last week, during Business Questions, she should have referred to correspondence directed to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that the House had not seen, but which—I need hardly add with this Government—the BBC had?
    Mrs. Taylor: I made it clear that the letter was addressed to the Chairman of the Select Committee. As I had been asked by Opposition Members for the latest information on the issue, I thought it incumbent upon me to give them the latest information.

    Inter-parliamentary Contacts
    Mr. Denis MacShane: If she will facilitate contacts between hon. Members and Members of the Parliaments of other EU nation states. [41333]
    The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Ann Taylor): There are already opportunities for contacts between hon. Members of this House and those in other European countries.

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    I would be content to consider any positive proposal that my hon. Friend may have on how we could constructively extend those opportunities.
    Mr. MacShane: I am grateful for that encouraging answer, especially now that we have drained much of the anti-European poison of the past few years. However, it is essential, is it not, that national parliaments play a role in the construction of Europe? Whereas hon. Members may visit any European institution once a year on the vote—paid for by the House—they cannot visit any national parliament in Europe. As only about 10 per cent. of that facility is taken up, there is a fair bit of dosh in my right hon. Friend's coffers that could be used to encourage, not political tourism, but proper contact between all hon. Members and their opposite numbers in other national parliaments, to build a stronger Britain in a coherent Europe.
    Mrs. Taylor: I must disabuse my hon. Friend of one point: there is no dosh in my coffers because of hon. Members not travelling in the way that he suggested. It is possible for hon. Members to travel to European institutions. Visits by Committees and by individual Members on specific duties are also possible. Many hon. Members do not use existing facilities to travel to Brussels or to Strasbourg to familiarise themselves with European Union events, and I think that more hon. Members could benefit from undertaking such journeys and participating in such meetings. Although visiting other national parliaments is an interesting suggestion, we would have to consider the purpose of such visits, to ensure that they were not open to abuse.
    Mr. Michael Fabricant: Is not that question a reflection of the fact that this Parliament continues to be sidelined by the Government? Is it not the fact that, since the general election, the Prime Minister has turned up for only seven votes? Is not most administration of the United Kingdom now performed in Whitehall and not in Parliament? Is it not the fact that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) would rather spend his time in other parliaments because he knows how worthless this place has become since the general election?
    Mrs. Taylor: No.
    Madam Speaker: Mr. Austin Mitchell. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] Mrs. Teresa Gorman.
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    [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is she?"] Mr. Ian Bruce. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] This is a disgrace. I hope that it will be noted and that I shall have letters of apology from all of them. We shall return to defence questions.

  DEFENCE
  The Secretary of State was asked
  DEFENCE

    Army Cadet Force
    Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: What plans he has to increase the strength of the Army Cadet Force. [41312]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): Ever present, Madam Speaker.
    We have no plans to increase the strength of the Army Cadet Force, but the hon. Gentleman will know how much value we place on its good work. As I told him on 8 April, we will consider within the strategic defence review increasing the resources available to it.
    Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I thank the Minister for that reply. He will be aware that scattered across Surrey, Sussex and Kent are some 20 Territorial Army centres. Does he agree that any reduction in the strength of the TA could lead to a severe reduction in the number of TA centres? If so, how will he sustain, let alone improve, the quality and numbers of the cadet forces if the TA centres close?
    Dr. Reid: The right hon. Gentleman is correct to point out the valuable assistance that the TA gives the armed forces cadets and the Army cadets in particular. It is one of the reasons that we will study the footprint of the TA extremely carefully to take into account geographical and other factors, including the Army cadets themselves. I have made plain our commitment to the Army cadets. I believe that they contribute greatly to our society by giving young men and women character-building opportunities and the chance to develop initiative and leadership. If that were not sufficient, I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the personal interest of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who was in his day a cadet of some distinction and who is fully behind the protection of the cadets in the defence review.

Points of Order
3.31 pm
Mr. Nicholas Soames: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Although I understand that, to your great relief, you are not responsible for ministerial answers, may I nevertheless ask you to intervene with Ministers who consistently fail to supply simple parliamentary written answers on the day on which they are due?
I had a number of questions to the Secretary of State for Defence due for written answer on Thursday. They were simple questions, relating to the dates and times when Ministers first discovered the Sandline operation in Sierra Leone. I received an answer from the Minister to the effect that the office could not answer the question but would reply shortly. Is that not unacceptable? Should not written answers arrive on the day they are due?
Madam Speaker: Does the Minister wish to respond to that point of order?
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): Perhaps I can assist the hon. Gentleman. My information is that all those questions answered by the Ministry of Defence in that fashion last week will, with two exceptions—because of the continuing inquiries—be answered today. We said last week that we would answer shortly; "shortly" is within two working days, and we shall be answering today.
Mr. Nick Gibb: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. On 27 April, the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce), having been criticised for his and his Liberal colleagues' minimal attendance at last summer's Finance Bill Standing Committee, informed the House that he was not a member of the Committee. Having checked the record, I discovered that the hon. Gentleman was indeed a member of that Committee, although his attendance record reveals that he clearly did not realise it. Have you been approached, Madam Speaker, by the hon. Gentleman with a view to his making a statement to correct the inadvertently misleading statement that he made to the House in April?
Madam Speaker: This tedious point-scoring has been noted.
Mr. Keith Simpson rose—
Madam Speaker: Is this another tedious point of order?
Mr. Simpson: I shall try not to be too tedious, but it is tedious for hon. Members when they put in for named day answers but do not get answers on that day. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), I tabled six questions to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for answer last Tuesday. I still have not received any answer, not even one to what I would have thought was a very simple question—which member of the Foreign Secretary's private office was responsible for policy relating to Sierra Leone.
Madam Speaker: The Leader of the House is present and there are Ministers on the Front Bench, so I am sure that the point of order has been noted. Perhaps we might now proceed with the debate on Sierra Leone.

Opposition Day
[11TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Sierra Leone
  [Relevant document: Minutes of evidence taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on 5 May and 14 May (HC 369-vii and 745-i).]
  Madam Speaker: I inform the House that I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.
  3.34 pm
  Mr. Michael Howard: I beg to move,
  That this House deplores the muddle of government policy towards Sierra Leone over the last year; notes the contradictory statements made on this matter by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; stresses the importance of establishing what knowledge and involvement there was on the part of government ministers, officials and officers of the intelligence services of and in the activities of Sandline International, including possible breaches of both international and United Kingdom law; and calls on the Government to announce without delay that it will establish a public inquiry into this question, presided over by a judge to be nominated by the Lord Chief Justice.
  In the past few days, the Foreign Office has become the setting for a Whitehall farce. We have seen the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), and the permanent secretary contradicting one another and themselves, day by day and hour by hour. We have seen a once great Department of State reduced to a shambles. We have seen muddle and mess on a massive scale.
  During the general election campaign, Conservative Members used to complain that new Labour was prepared to change its line as often as necessary to win votes, but the more innocent among us never expected that to persist after the election. Yet, when this affair began, the Foreign Secretary's defence was that his officials knew more than he did, and that he should have been told. The Prime Minister then came out with a second defence: Britain had helped the good guys to win, and that was all that mattered. In the House last week, the Foreign Secretary seemed to be edging towards a third defence—his officials had done nothing wrong after all. The Prime Minister is preening himself for a policy that Ministers were apparently not told about, and that was never implemented.
  Let no one be in any doubt that the questions at the heart of this debate are serious and grave. It is clear that the Prime Minister takes a different view, but he does not seem to know or care what the Foreign Secretary said in the House on 6 May, when he told us of his deep concern and said that the matter was
  "of proper concern to the House."—[Official Report, 6 May 1998; Vol. 311, c. 723.]
  He said that it was very serious, and that no one should underestimate its gravity.
  When my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Mr. Bottomley) suggested that officials were doing what they believed Ministers wanted by working for the

  601
  restoration of President Kabbah—what might roughly be called the "Blair defence"—he was told by the Foreign Secretary that he was
  "wildly out of touch with reality".
  The House might think that "wildly out of touch with reality" is a perfect description of the Prime Minister's attitude throughout this unhappy affair.
  There are three key questions before the House this afternoon. First, what did the Foreign Office know about the activities of Sandline International, when did it know, and what did it do about it? Secondly, what does the saga tell us about the way in which the Foreign Office is run, and the grip, or lack of it, that the Foreign Secretary has on his Department? Thirdly, what are the consequences of the various ill-timed and ill-considered interventions by the Prime Minister, and what effect have they had on the prosecution of Sandline?
  Let me make it clear that Conservative Members welcome the ousting of the military regime in Sierra Leone run by Major Koroma, and the restoration of President Kabbah. The Government were right to want his restoration and to work for it, but the essential question they faced from the outset was whether they wanted President Kabbah restored peacefully, or whether they were prepared to sanction military intervention to secure his return.
  To that essential question the Foreign Secretary gave an unequivocal answer on 6 May:
  "There was no Government policy or UN support for military intervention to restore President Kabbah. Resolution 1132 and consistent ministerial statements on Sierra Leone stressed that we supported President Kabbah, but wanted him to be restored through diplomatic negotiation, not military intervention."—[Official Report, 6 May 1998; Vol. 311, c. 727.]
  That crucial feature of Government policy is something of which the Prime Minister appears to be blissfully ignorant—perhaps no one ever told him about it—but everything that the Government did flowed from that.
  It was because the Government did not support military intervention that they took a leading role in sponsoring and drafting resolution 1132. It was because they did not support military intervention that they translated resolution 1132 promptly—as the Foreign Secretary was at pains to point out on 6 May—into an Order in Council prepared by the Foreign Office. It was because they did not support military intervention that the Order in Council made it a criminal offence to supply arms or other equipment to any persons connected with Sierra Leone. That is the background against which the facts of this saga fall to be considered.
  The involvement of Sandline International in events in Sierra Leone first came to public attention in February, when Lord Avebury, apparently alerted by what he had seen on the Internet, wrote to a Foreign Office official to report allegations that Sandline had arranged for the supply of arms from Bulgaria to forces loyal to President Kabbah. That letter led to the Foreign Office calling on Customs and Excise to investigate the allegations.
  On 6 May, the Foreign Secretary told the House that that had happened on 10 March. By the time that Sir John Kerr gave evidence to the Select Committee on Thursday, it had been discovered that, in fact, the reference to Customs had been made in February.
  Mr. Hugh Bayley: Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman leaves the subject of military
  602
  intervention, will he tell us his party's view? Does it support the involvement of the military observer group, ECOWAS, in the overthrow of Major Johnny Paul Koroma's regime?
  Mr. Howard: I see no reason to differ from the view expressed by the Minister of State, who has told the House that he was not happy to support the activities of ECOMOG, and that they conflicted with the UN resolution. Whether we on the Conservative Benches would have supported precisely that UN resolution and the Order in Council that flowed from it is a different matter. The Government did, and they must accept the consequences. The matter is as simple as that. The hon. Gentleman must learn that his party is in government now, and that certain consequences flow from that.
  Mr. Mike Gapes: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that the Government of whom he was a prominent member gave training assistance to a military dictatorship in Sierra Leone before the election of President Kabbah, and that the Conservative Government had a record of supporting brutal military regimes throughout the world?
  Mr. Howard: I do not accept that for one moment. I am prepared to debate and defend the previous Government's record at any appropriate time. This debate is not about the previous Government; this debate is about the activities of the present Government. Labour Members must learn that their party is in government. They must decide when they go through the Lobby whether they want to support the Government's activities. They will not be able to change the subject.
  It is significant that Foreign Office officials—or at least those who saw Lord Avebury's letter—were immediately aware of its implications. They knew that the Government's policy was to work for the peaceful restoration of President Kabbah's Government. They knew that the supply of arms was inconsistent with that policy, and illegal. That is why they called in Customs and Excise.
  The matter first came into the public domain in an article in The Observer on 8 March, which apparently led to the intervention of the Minister of State in the House on 12 May. The Minister did not mention the Customs investigation into Sandline. He and the Foreign Secretary say that that is because he was not told about it in his briefing before the debate.
  On Thursday, before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Sir John Kerr first said that he thought that the Minister's briefing contained a reference to the Customs investigation. Then, after "checking his memory", he said that it did not. I mean no disrespect to Sir John when I say that we should have preferred him to check the file and briefing papers rather than his memory before he sent his extraordinary letter on Thursday.
  I ask for the production of that file. There can be no reason whatever why it should not be produced. The Foreign Secretary has repeatedly said that he wants to be full and open about the matter. Why can that file not be produced now, this afternoon, to assist the House in debating the matter? In the absence of the production of that file, the House, and, indeed, the country, will draw their conclusions about what the Foreign Secretary and his Minister of State have to hide.

  603
  Whatever the file may or may not contain, we know that the Minister of State's account of events to the House on 12 March was, to put it as mildly as I can, incomplete. He described the account in The Observer as "ill-informed and scurrilous"; he described the article as nonsense. But he did not specifically deny the only explicit allegation in the article—that Peter Penfold, the high commissioner to Sierra Leone, had been involved in discussions with Sandline. He failed to tell the House about something that we know was in his brief: the deal between President Kabbah and Sandline.
  On Thursday, in the latest of his many ill-starred appearances before the House and the Select Committee, the Minister said that his statement on 12 March was an exact account of his state of knowledge at that time. He went on to say, betraying a little less than full confidence in his previous remark, that, if that turned out to be wrong, he would appear before the House to correct any error.
  An appearance has yet to be made in respect of that error. The Minister of State has still to provide an answer to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) last Tuesday: was Sandline International mentioned at his meetings about Sierra Leone on 19 March and 1 April? It is a perfectly straightforward question, and the Minister could and should answer it now. Will he do so? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I would be happy to give way to him.
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office(Mr. Tony Lloyd): No, Madam Speaker.
  Mr. Howard: We note the Minister's answer, and are delighted to have it, but it is a great shame that we have had to wait nearly a week for such a simple and straightforward answer.
  The Foreign Secretary told us last week that he received his first document regarding any breach of the arms embargo, or shipment of arms, on 28 April. He then took us on an entertaining tour of the furniture in his office. He did not tell us when the documents were first sent to his private office.
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): I am glad to tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the letter was faxed to my office on 24 April. On 25 April, I was in Brussels, and between 25 and 27 April I was in Luxembourg. I returned on 28 April, and was shown the letter within an hour and a half of landing. I do not see what the right hon. and learned Gentleman's problem is.
  Mr. Howard: The Foreign Secretary has once again answered a question that I did not ask. I asked not about the letter of 24 April from Sandline, but about any document that might have referred to Sandline's involvement in Sierra Leone; if the Foreign Secretary cannot see the difference between those two questions, he certainly is not fit to hold the office that he occupies.
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  His previous answers, and, indeed, his answer now, were carefully phrased to refer to documents, but did not refer to any oral briefing that he may have received.
  Mr. Cook: I am again glad to inform the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I had no oral briefings at any stage beforehand, so I hope that he can skip to the next page of his speech.
  Mr. Howard: I am absolutely delighted that the Foreign Secretary is in a rather more forthcoming mood today than he has been in the past. I hope that that will continue when he makes his own speech. I will be happy to give way to him again if he will reply to the series of questions put last week by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), which the Foreign Secretary acknowledged were perfectly proper questions. The Foreign Secretary knows that he need not wait before answering those questions; he should answer them in advance of the inquiry, and without delay.
  We are asked to accept that the Foreign Secretary's alibi is that he did not know what was happening in his own Department. Those are not words for which I can claim any originality; the right hon. Gentleman used them himself in 1992.
  The Opposition are prepared to accept the general proposition that the Foreign Secretary cannot be expected to know of every small or trivial matter in the Foreign Office. However, we cannot accept that recent events in Sierra Leone are either small or trivial. After all, we are talking about the reversal of a coup carried out by a military junta in a country with which we have always had close and friendly relations.
  Sierra Leone was important enough to receive a visit from the Minister of State at the end of March, although we have yet to hear what he was told during his visit about the activities of Sandline. It was of such importance that the Foreign Secretary appointed a special representative, Mr. John Flynn,
  "to co-ordinate international support for the restoration of the elected Government."—[Official Report, 12 May 1998; Vol. 312, c. 153.]
  We have not been told much about Mr. Flynn: the Foreign Secretary did not mention him when he came to the House on 6 May. What involvement did Mr. Flynn have with Sandline? What did he report to the Foreign Secretary? If he was co-ordinating international support for the restoration of the elected Government, he at least must surely have known what was going on. If he was appointed by the Secretary of State to act as a special representative, he surely must have reported back to the Secretary of State. Those questions and many others do not need to wait for the outcome of the inquiry. They can, and they should, be answered now.
  What was the involvement of the Ministry of Defence? Over the weekend, we had reports for the first time that another naval vessel, HMS Monmouth, was in the area with a significant number of British service personnel on board. What part, if any, did that vessel play in the military action? Will the inquiry cover the involvement of the Ministry of Defence and the knowledge of Ministers and officials in that and the other Government Departments involved?

  605
  Last week, the Foreign Secretary got on his high horse when dealing with allegations that he might not have read all his briefing, saying:
  "I strongly resent the suggestion that there has been any briefing on the matter that has not been read by me or by the Minister of State."—[Official Report, 12 May 1998; Vol. 312, c. 156.]
  I am bound to say that the Foreign Secretary has only himself to blame when such suggestions are made, as it was the right hon. Gentleman himself who boasted in the documentary "How to be a Foreign Secretary" that he did not always read his briefing. Perhaps just a trifle prematurely, he said:
  "I have recognised that you can be a successful Foreign Secretary if you focus on the big questions and not necessarily … finish the paperwork."
  If the Foreign Secretary volunteers statements of that sort, he cannot be surprised when people take them at face value. Indeed, he cannot be surprised if officials do so. Was it because he did not finish his paperwork that officials, perhaps understandably, stopped putting it in front of him?
  Turning to the part played in this farrago by the Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman has taken a rather lofty attitude to all this. As far as he is concerned, the only thing that matters is that President Kabbah was restored. The fact that the Foreign Secretary was insisting that he should be restored peacefully is a trivial detail. The fact that an arms embargo was imposed by the United Nations and made a part of the criminal law of this country is irrelevant; and the fact that that arms embargo and the criminal law may have been breached is "overblown hoo-hah". "Who?" is indeed the question; "Ha" alas, is not a sufficient answer.
  The Prime Minister said yesterday that the Foreign Secretary had led the restoration of President Kabbah, yet the Foreign Secretary disclaims all knowledge and responsibility. The full extent to which the Prime Minister has become wildly out of touch with reality—to use the Foreign Secretary's phrase—was apparent in his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) last Wednesday.
  My hon. Friend asked the Prime Minister how he could claim credit for the outcome in Sierra Leone when he says that he did nothing to bring it about. His answer was:
  "I am not saying that we did nothing: we did a great deal to bring it about."—[Official Report, 13 May 1998; Vol. 312, c. 370.]
  He want on to talk about humanitarian aid and money for schools, hospitals and transport.
  The fact is that President Kabbah was not restored to power by aid or money to schools, hospitals and transport. He was restored to power by military intervention that was contrary to British policy. It was contrary to United Nations policy, and it is something that the Prime Minister, in sharp contrast to his Foreign Secretary, has consistently failed to recognise. For the Prime Minister, it is increasingly clear that the truth is what he says is the truth, and the law is what he says is the law. A good result is something proclaimed by him to be a good result. Indeed, I confidently expect that tomorrow he will declare that Newcastle United won the FA cup on Saturday after all.
  This saga, as never before, proves how much power has gone to the Prime Minister's head. If it were not so serious, it would be laughable, but it is serious. The Prime Minister's interventions may well have had the most
  606
  serious impact on the criminal investigation by the Customs and Excise. Almost the first thing that the Foreign Secretary told the House about the whole affair was:
  "The chairman of Customs and Excise has requested that while that investigation proceeds, nothing should be said that could prejudice it."—[Official Report, 6 May 1998; Vol. 311, c. 721.]
  It is a pity that he did not draw those words to the attention of the Prime Minister.
  This saga has brought the Foreign Office into disrepute—it has become the laughing stock of the world. What can be done to restore its reputation? There can be no doubt that there should be a full, urgent and independent inquiry. The inquiry must cover all relevant Departments; it must once and for all establish what Ministers and officials knew, and when; if Ministers and officials did not know, it must explain why; and it must ensure that decision making in the Foreign Office never again plumbs such depths.
  The inquiry must be held in public, and be presided over by a judge. It is no disrespect to any individual to say that an inquiry held behind closed doors by someone who has spent his whole working life as a civil servant in Whitehall does not begin to fit the bill. If this country is to be convinced that there is no cover-up or whitewash, the inquiry must sit in public, so that we can see that every avenue is thoroughly and vigorously pursued.
  A precedent is readily to hand. The Government's inquiry into BSE is sitting in public, and is presided over by a distinguished judge. What is the difference between that inquiry and the one into Sierra Leone? Is it simply that, when the Government hold an inquiry into events that took place under their predecessors, they hold a public inquiry under a distinguished judge, but when they are forced to hold an inquiry into events for which they are responsible, they hold an inquiry in private—behind closed doors—under a Whitehall insider who has spent his whole working life as a civil servant?
  On 23 April, the Foreign Secretary addressed a dinner in the City. He delivered what he termed an "interim report" on his stewardship of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He said that he would not be able to conclude by declaring an interim dividend, but he went on:
  "I can report that the senior executives of the business are satisfied with the performance of the company and are bullish about our future prospects."
  The very next day, the letter from Sandline arrived at the Foreign Office. Ever since, the Foreign Office has been submerged in a mess of muddle and incompetence.
  The Foreign Secretary has only one way in which to begin to retrieve his reputation—by ordering a full, independent and public inquiry under a senior judge. If he fails to do so, he will be confessing that he has something to hide. He will stand accused of conniving at a cover-up, and he will be paving the way to a whitewash. Nothing less than a public inquiry will do. I commend the motion to the House.
  3.57 pm
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  'notes the Government's consistent policy of support for the restoration of President Kabbah and recognition of him as the elected and legitimate President of Sierra Leone and welcomes the

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  success of that policy and the overthrow of the brutal and repressive military regime; applauds the open and proper manner in which the Government have responded to allegations of a breach of the UN arms embargo; and congratulates the Government on its commitment to an urgent outside investigation and publication of a full report.'
  The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) has not been prompted to choose this topic for debate by a deep compassion for the people of Sierra Leone. He was happy to say nothing in the House about the people of Sierra Leone for nine months, while their elected president was in exile and their local population was being terrorised by a brutal military regime. [HON. MEMBERS: "What did you say?"] I shall say what the Government did, and I shall expect some backing from the Opposition when they hear what support we gave to President Kabbah.
  Mr. Howard: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what he told the House during those nine months?
  Mr. Cook: Several times in the past year, the Foreign Office made perfectly plain our support for President Kabbah—I did so myself when I met the Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone.
  Both the removal and the restoration of President Kabbah passed over the right hon. and learned Gentleman's head without comment or question. He has been prompted to bring the debate before the House by his desperate wish to believe that the extravagant allegations that have been made over the past week were true. Anyone would have to be pretty desperate to believe all of them: new depths of absurdity were plumbed on Sunday, when it was suggested that the Prime Minister may have been complicit in a breach of the arms embargo this year because his father lectured in law in Sierra Leone 30 years ago.
  It is an extraordinary testimony to the emptiness of the speech that we just heard from the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who said nothing about Sierra Leone until two weeks ago, that it did not contain a single new point. His credibility on this matter would be greater, were it not for the fact that every Labour Member remembers, far better than Conservative Members appear to, what the Conservatives did in government.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman has the nerve to wax eloquent about my not being in control of my Department. That takes a brass neck, coming from a former Home Secretary who, when told that 537 prisoners had been given early release, replied:
  "I think I should have been consulted."
  The questions that have been posed this afternoon are easily disposed of. The right hon. and learned Member sees something sinister in HMS Monmouth being stationed in the area. HMS Monmouth was sent, prudently, by the Ministry of Defence, in case it should be necessary to evacuate civilians during the fighting. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is surprised that officials, acting perfectly properly, could have referred their suspicions to Customs and Excise for examination. It is absolutely right that officials should feel able to seek an investigation of a possible offence without political approval, and the procedure on that point has not changed one iota between the time of the previous Government and that of the present one.
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  In the last two years of the Conservative Government, there were 200 occasions when action was taken by the Customs and Excise following Government information fed through the restrictive enforcement unit, and, on the vast majority of such occasions, there was no reference to Ministers. Indeed, I doubt whether all the former Conservative Ministers present, between them, could name 10 per cent. of those cases. So let us have no more humbug about the procedures in this case being incredible, when they were identical to the procedures followed by the Conservatives in office.
  Mr. Edward Gamier: In the cases that the Foreign Secretary just mentioned, did the then Prime Minister at any stage refer to those investigations as "hoo-hah"?
  Mr. Cook: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister never referred to the case against Sandline, or the investigation, as hoo-hah. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] No, he never did. My right hon. Friend made it plain that, if there was a breach of the embargo, that was wrong; he absolutely said that. What he did say, absolutely rightly, was that all the many wild allegations that have accrued around that investigation were hoo-hah.
  For the past two weeks, I have been constrained in what I can say because of a perfectly proper concern not to prejudice the investigation by the Customs and Excise; but, as of this afternoon, that investigation is over. Last week, I said that the extensive—
  Sir Peter Emery: What the Foreign Secretary said about the number of references that had previously been made to Customs and Excise was important. May we know how many of those references concerned a breach of a United Nations decision and resolution, and how many concerned the export of arms? Those are the two matters which are of major importance.
  Mr. Cook: I made it clear that those 200 cases arose entirely from proceedings in the restrictive enforcement unit.
  Sir Peter Emery: That reply does not answer the question, which was about arms and the UN.
  Mr. Cook: No; that reply is the answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question. The restrictive enforcement unit exists precisely to police any acts of restriction on trade resulting from UN decisions or Orders in Council by Britain. That is its function.
  Last week, I said that the extensive files on this matter made it clear that there was no conspiracy between officials of the Africa department at the Foreign Office and Sandline to breach the arms embargo. As the Customs and Excise investigation is over, I can today be more blunt.
  Throughout the whole period, there was only one meeting between officials at the Foreign Office and Colonel Spicer of Sandline. I am advised by the senior official at that meeting that Sandline said that it had heard that someone else was planning to run shipments of arms to Sierra Leone, and asked what the legal position would be. The text of the Security Council resolution was fetched and read to the representatives of Sandline. They asked whether the reference to Sierra Leone included

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  everyone connected with Sierra Leone, and they were advised that that was the case. It was the very same officials who alerted Customs and Excise to their suspicions and started an investigation. That is not the action of people conniving in the very breach that they were asking Customs and Excise to investigate.
  I believe that the conduct of public policy by Ministers and by officials must be open to scrutiny. That is why, from our first exchanges in the House on the matter, I have made it clear that I wanted what had happened inside the Foreign Office to be investigated from outside the Foreign Office. Now that the Customs and Excise investigation has been concluded, I can announce that I have asked Sir Thomas Legg QC to undertake that investigation, and he has agreed. As an eminent lawyer, he has impeccable qualifications for the job. Even the right hon. and learned Gentleman announced this morning that he had great respect for Sir Thomas Legg—although I did not hear that when he spoke in the House this afternoon.
  As a distinguished servant of the Lord Chancellor's Department, Sir Thomas has weighty and relevant experience of the relationship between the public service and the prosecuting authorities; and, as a retired servant of the Department, he is now free to express his mind openly and independently.
  Mr. Howard: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that Sir Thomas Legg, for whom I do have considerable respect, has spent the whole of his working life as a civil servant in and around Whitehall? Does he seriously think that an inquiry held in private by someone who has spent his whole working life as a civil servant meets the seriousness of this case or that it will reassure the public?
  Mr. Cook: The right hon. and learned Gentleman apparently believes that Sir Thomas's experience and knowledge of the public service will be a handicap in his inquiry—that it compromises his independence to know the procedures that he is investigating. I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be pleased with what I am about to say. I can reassure him that Sir Thomas Legg will not be acting alone. He will be supported by an assessor of impeccable independence of mind. I believe it important that the investigation should assess the procedures of the public service in this matter by the best standards of modern management.
  I am therefore pleased to inform the House that Sir Robin Ibbs has agreed to assist Sir Thomas Legg as an assessor. As a former director of ICI and chairman of Lloyds TSB, Sir Robin has great experience and authority—[Interruption.] My hon. Friends must not spoil my punchline. He has great experience and authority of best management practice—so much so that, when the Conservatives were in government, Baroness Thatcher appointed him as her adviser on efficiency. I am therefore confident that Conservative Members will applaud his expertise.
  Mr. Gander rose—
  Mr. Cook: The hon. and learned Gentleman has already had his shot.
  I will be placing in the Library a copy of the full terms of reference of the investigation, which is essentially tasked with answering two key questions: whether any
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  Department of the Government gave approval to breaches of the arms embargo on Sierra Leone; and what was known by the Government, either by Ministers or officials, of any alleged breach. The investigation will extend to the Ministry of Defence and any other relevant Department. It will also cover the intelligence agencies and will have regard to any communiqué or report received by officials which referred to Sandline.
  The investigation will commence immediately and be concluded as soon as possible. The report will be made public. I will ensure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has adequate time to read the report before it is published.
  Sir Peter Tapsell rose—
  Mr. Douglas Hogg rose—
  Madam Speaker: Order. The Foreign Secretary is not giving way.
  Mr. Cook: There will be no repeat of the shabby manipulation by this Conservative party over the Scott report, when we were given three hours to read five volumes.
  Mr. Hogg: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Will he tell the House, first, whether the two persons charged with the inquiry will sit in public, and, secondly, if they want to enlarge their terms of reference, will they be allowed to do so?
  Mr. Cook: If the investigators wished to enlarge their terms of reference, I would welcome any request from them. We would look carefully at it and I am sure that we would agree to it. On the question whether they would sit in public, I listened with the greatest interest to the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe describing his new discovery of the virtues of the public inquiry. It was not a discovery which he made in government.
  I must apologise, Madam Speaker, because in my statement to the House last week, I misled the House. I recognise the importance that the Opposition attach to putting the record straight. Last week, I informed the House that, as Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe had lost 13 cases in the courts. I regret to inform the House that I overlooked four other cases that need to be taken into account, making a grand total of 17 lost cases. Not once did he order a public inquiry to find out where he went wrong.
  Twice during the right hon. and learned Gentleman's period as Home Secretary, the spectacular escape of prisoners led him to appoint an inquiry into the Prison Service, and on neither occasion did he make it a public inquiry, yet, now that he is in opposition, we are asked to believe that he is a born-again believer in public inquiries.
  Sir Peter Tapsell rose—
  Mr. Cook: I shall give way for the last time.
  Sir Peter Tapsell: When the right hon. Gentleman finally tells the House whether the inquiry is to be held in public, will he at the same time tell us why he has

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  gone to such enormous lengths to avoid the obvious and traditional custom of appointing a High Court judge to preside over such an inquiry?
  Mr. Cook: I have already announced the distinguished lawyer who will conduct the inquiry. He is so distinguished that even the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe is obliged to say that he has great respect for him. I am perfectly confident that Sir Thomas Legg is as capable of carrying out the inquiry properly, legally and with adequate qualifications and safeguards as any High Court judge.
  Ms Diane Abbott: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I hope that he accepts that, even if the Opposition are not seriously interested in Sierra Leone, there are people in the House and, more important, outside the House who are extremely interested in Sierra Leone and in how the Government handle such issues in Africa. Will the inquiry take as its point of departure the Orders in Council passed in this country, which were quite clear that arms were not to be sent to anyone in Sierra Leone, or will the inquiry take as its point of reference the United Nations resolution, which people are now saying is ambiguous?
  Mr. Cook: I would contest my hon. Friend's final statement that the resolution was ambiguous, but, to answer her narrow point, the investigation will have both documents available to it. The investigators can draw whatever conclusions they, with their qualifications and their investigations, see fit to draw from both documents in the light of events over the past four months.
  I have honoured the commitment that I gave that the inquiry would be carried out by someone from outside the Foreign Office. The public need to know the truth, and they need to know it urgently. If we went down the road of a public inquiry, we would waiting for it to start, long after the investigation that I have announced will be finished and out in public.
  Moreover, the issues do not justify a public inquiry. It is already clear that we are looking at a limited range of issues over a short period and covered in a relatively modest bundle of official papers. There is not a single ministerial decision on Sandline to be investigated. That is entirely different from the arms to Iraq scandal, in which the inquiry had to pursue back over several years questions of Government policy, and in which Ministers were in it up to their necks, both in the secret changes in policy and in the repeated deceit of Parliament and the courts. It is even more limited in scope than the matters being pursued in the public inquiry into bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which will examine the conduct of Government policy over 15 years and the repeated failure of Ministers in the previous Government to grasp the severity of the problem or to be frank with the public.
  The real reason why the right hon. and learned Gentleman demands a public inquiry is to create the impression that there is a great political scandal waiting to be exposed. He has so far failed miserably to expose it. To be fair to him, he cannot find a great political scandal on this issue because there is not one there.
  Mr. Dominic Grieve: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I have listened
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  carefully to his comments, and he seems to reject the allegations made by Sandline regarding its conversations with the Foreign Office. Is not that in itself a good reason why the matter should be referred to a judge for inquiry? There is the question not only of the Foreign Secretary's comments to the House but whether there has been a misunderstanding between Sandline and the Foreign Office, and who is right about those conversations.
  Mr. Cook: The hon. Gentleman's question has already been asked and answered. I am perfectly confident that Sir Thomas Legg QC has all the legal experience and qualifications necessary to adjudicate in such matters. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman on one point—indeed, his comments are helpful. Until now, we have heard in public only the allegations by Sandline; the investigation can now start to sift the evidence properly and produce a full and considered report.
  As the Conservative party attaches so much importance to Sierra Leone and has put the topic before the House for debate, perhaps we could invite Conservative Members to attach some importance to what is said by the people of Sierra Leone. Nobody in Sierra Leone believes that there is any political scandal in the conduct of the British Government towards their country. They are delighted to be rid of a savage military regime which killed their sons and raped their daughters. They are delighted to have back their elected president and their constitutional Government. There was no failure of British policy in Sierra Leone. Britain supported the elected Government of Sierra Leone.
  Mr. Howard: Does that mean, therefore, that the Foreign Secretary now accepts that his policy has been wrong throughout and that he should have favoured military intervention to restore President Kabbah?
  Mr. Cook: I refer the right hon. and learned Gentleman to what President Kabbah has said. He has expressed his profound gratitude for the resolute support that Britain gave him. Since then, the high commissioner for Sierra Leone has written to the Minister of State, saying that he has followed
  "with utter disbelief the sustained attacks on the British Government's role in restoring democracy to Sierra Leone."
  As the right hon. and learned Gentleman has asked what Labour and Britain did for Sierra Leone, I shall tell him. Britain supported the elected Government of Sierra Leone, and Britain helped pass the resolution of support for it at the United Nations. Britain welcomed President Kabbah to the meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government. Britain was first on the scene after the restoration of President Kabbah with the humanitarian relief provided by HMS Cornwall. The Minister of State was on the first ministerial team from outside west Africa to visit Sierra Leone and to congratulate President Kabbah after his restoration.
  Last July, when I outlined our policy on human rights at a meeting of non-governmental organisations, I referred to the funding and equipment that Britain had provided for a radio station supporting the cause of democracy against a regime so repressive that I was advised that I could not name it without risking reprisals against British lives. That radio station was to enable President Kabbah to communicate directly to his people throughout the period of military rule. That radio station, funded by

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  Britain, was the vital link between President Kabbah and his people. It helped mobilise support for the restoration of democracy in that country. That is part of the practical, financial, moral and political support that we provided to President Kabbah.
  There was no failure of policy; nor has there been any cover-up. We have acted openly throughout. The Foreign Office took the initiative in referring the original decision to Customs and Excise. The Foreign Office has cooperated openly and fully with the Customs and Excise investigation. I moved immediately on the completion of that investigation to appoint an investigation by two men who bring to it immense legal authority and unchallengeable probity. Every briefing paper, every telegram and every minute will be available to them. Yet the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe and others around him have the nerve to claim that there is still some comparison between this episode and the conduct of the previous Government over arms to Iraq.
  There are no comparisons. There are only contrasts between our conduct in Sierra Leone and the previous Government's conduct in Iraq. The greatest contrast of all is that, in Sierra Leone, the Government's policy has contributed to the return of a legitimate and elected Government. In Iraq, the Conservative Government's policy still leaves British machine tools turning out shells for a brutal and repressive dictator.
  How many Conservative Members can say that they are proud of what their Government did in supplying Saddam Hussein? We can be proud of what we did for Sierra Leone. Therefore, we are confident that the independent investigation that I have announced today will show that, unlike the previous Government, we have nothing to fear from bringing the truth out into the open.
  4.21 pm
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Whether there is now to be a prosecution, there are fundamental questions that still require to be answered. Even if there is no prosecution, it does not mean that the United Nations arms embargo was not broken. Even if there is no prosecution, it does not mean that no criminal offence was committed. If no prosecution is to be initiated, it means only that the prosecuting authority does not believe that it can successfully obtain a conviction.
  I am bound to say that there seemed little chance of a conviction by a jury when the words "hoo-hah" and "hype" were used to dismiss what was and remains legitimate public interest in these events. There seemed little chance of a conviction by a jury as soon as the public were told to concentrate on the successful restoration of a legitimate Government and to disregard the means by which that was achieved. The truth is that after these interventions, prosecution was inevitably doomed.
  If the words "hoo-hah" and "hype" are of any significance in the context in which they were used, why was it that the Foreign Office referred the matter to Customs and Excise? It cannot have done so lightly. If "hoo-hah" and "hype" are legitimate to use to dismiss interest in these matters, why has the Foreign Secretary ordered an independent inquiry? An inquiry is an acknowledgement that there are matters of substance to investigate, and the more distinguished the members of the inquiry, the more substantial these matters are.
  Mr. Hogg: The hon. and learned Gentleman has made an important point, that the Prime Minister's public
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  intervention may have made the prospects of a successful prosecution remote. Does he agree that one of the things that the two inquiry adjudicators should look into is exactly what the advice of Customs and Excise was as to the prospects of a successful prosecution, so that we may know whether it was the Prime Minister's intervention that made a prosecution impossible?
  Mr. Campbell: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows better than me, that is a matter for the Attorney-General. I suspect that the conventions by which the prosecuting authority reports to the Attorney-General are such that investigation of those matters would be prevented. It would, however, be open to the Attorney-General to take the view that so important was that matter that he would waive the traditional right to confidentiality. Thus the right hon. and learned Gentleman's proposition would depend substantially on the view that the Attorney-General was willing to take.
  The dismal truth is that, after a fortnight of speculation and innuendo, we are no better informed of the answers to the questions posed at the outset of this affair. Those questions remain as follows: was the United Nations arms embargo breached; was criminal domestic law breached; if there were such breaches, were officials of any Government Department, or officers of the security services, implicated; and, given that I accept the truthfulness of Ministers, why were they not informed?
  Mr. Tom King: I am sorry to take the hon. and learned Gentleman back a little, but I wanted to intervene because the Attorney-General is in the Chamber. One issue that emerged from the Scott inquiry was responsibility for Customs and Excise prosecutions. It was felt that Customs and Excise should have greater independence. The previous Attorney-General said:
  "I shall be answerable to the House for actions taken by Customs and Excise in relation to individual prosecutions relating to defence exports and to sanctions infringements".—[Official Report, 17 June 1996; Vol. 279, c. 331.]
  That was an enhancement of the role from the previous position. In a sense, it meant greater independence. The independence of prosecution activity by Customs and Excise was thought to be at the heart of the Scott inquiry. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman think that, in the light of that answer, the Attorney-General should be able to help the House today?
  Mr. Campbell: It is for the Attorney-General to decide whether he wants to favour the House. After all, part of his role is independent of the Government, and if he feels that he could assist the House by intervening, I have no doubt that a suitable opportunity could be found.
  On the general point to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, I was a member of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry during the investigation into what became known as the Iraqi supergun. The then Attorney-General, who is now the noble Lord Mayhew, explained to the Committee at great length why by convention up to that point the Attorney-General's role in relation to Customs and Excise investigations and prosecutions was very limited. Indeed, as a result of Lord Justice Scott's strictures on that matter, the convention and practice have both been changed.
  Mr. Ian Bruce: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Campbell: No; I should like to make progress.

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  On 5 February 1998, my noble Friend Lord Avebury wrote to a senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office official reporting allegations that had appeared originally in the Toronto Globe and Mail of 31 July 1997—more than eight months previously—which were repeated on 9 February in another publication. On 26 February, the Foreign Office official replied to that letter of 5 February, saying that the allegation that Sandline was involved in the supply of arms to Sierra Leone, which was contrary to Security Council resolution 1132, implemented in British law by Orders in Council, had been referred to the appropriate authorities—Customs and Excise—which would examine any evidence and assess whether a crime had been committed. Therefore, at some time between 5 and 26 February, an individual in the Foreign Office had referred the matter to Customs and Excise. That makes the delay in bringing those matters directly to Ministers' attention all the more difficult to understand.
  It is a matter of profound regret to me that, after a fortnight of what I can only describe as inept, confused and occasionally contradictory handling by the Government, the reputation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been substantially dented. To argue that the House should ignore Sandline because the result was satisfactory is to ignore the rights of the House of Commons and of Members of Parliament to hold Ministers of the Crown to account for their actions. To argue, as some have, that we should concentrate on nuclear proliferation in the Asian sub-continent or on unrest in Kosovo and relegate consideration of Sandline is to ignore the fact that our confidence in the Government to deal properly with those issues depends, inevitably, on our assessment of the competence of the Foreign Office to deal properly with Sandline.
  Even supposing that there was no breach of the United Nations resolution, why were Ministers not informed of the proposed arms shipments? The Foreign Secretary has given us statistical information, and it might benefit from closer analysis once it is put in the public domain. Are arms shipments to areas of tension where the United Kingdom Government are pursuing a determined policy for the restoration of a deposed foreign Government so commonplace that they do not rate any mention to Ministers? If that is so, it is a surprising state of affairs.
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred the matter to Customs and Excise. Are such references, where the transaction is the shipment of arms, so commonplace that they do not rate any mention to Ministers or to a Foreign Secretary who, on any view, enhanced and distinguished his reputation by the way in which he pursued the previous Government in relation to the arms to Iraq affair? One would have thought in those circumstances that, from the narrowest of political standpoints, it would be inevitable that such a matter, if there were something of that sort, would be referred to the Foreign Secretary—and to this Foreign Secretary in particular.
  Mr. Ian Bruce: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman think that the House is missing something—that the arms were not going to Sierra Leone, but to the Nigerian
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  military regime? We should be looking at whether the British Government were effectively conniving with a regime that they constantly condemn.
  Mr. Campbell: Nigeria's role in those matters occasioned considerable anxiety. At the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh last September, there was considerable scrutiny of Nigeria's response to the conditions placed on it for continued membership of the Commonwealth. Some, myself included, argued that Nigeria's failure to observe the conditions on which it had been suspended was such that expulsion should follow. The attitude of the Government—of any British Government—to Nigeria in such circumstances was bound to be one of sensitivity.
  I had considerable apprehension about the role taken by the Nigerian Government in the restoration of President Kabbah. Once again, we got the right result, but whenever one makes that point, one must ask, "Supposing we had not got the right result? Supposing the outcomes had been different—would our attitude and the Government's attitude to the means by which they were achieved be rather different?"
  I welcome the proposal to hold an independent inquiry. I am not convinced that it needs to be held in public, so long as a person of sufficient detachment and independence is chosen to conduct it. I agree with the Foreign Secretary about the conversion of some Conservative Members to the value of a public inquiry. I remember well, as he does, that before he and I were given three hours to examine Lord Justice Scott's report in the basement of the Department of Trade and Industry, a lot of senior Conservatives—including Lord Howe of Aberavon, if my memory serves me correctly—were put up to rubbish in advance the outcome of the Scott inquiry, before the report had even been published.
  It did not stop there. The Foreign Secretary will remember that the central conclusion of the report was that Parliament had been deliberately misled about a change of policy. What happened at the Dispatch Box? The then President of the Board of Trade, now Lord Lang, said that the Government did not accept the central conclusion of the report. That justifies the Foreign Secretary exhibiting a degree of scepticism about the conversion that has taken place, but when sinners return to the fold, one should try to be nothing other than generous.
  Mr. Grieve: Leaving aside the question whether sinners have been converted, does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that, in the light of what the Foreign Secretary said today, one of the central issues in the inquiry will be whether the Foreign Office's recollections of its dealings with Sandline are right or whether it might be mistaken? In such circumstances, it would be inappropriate for the members of the inquiry and its chairman to be drawn from the civil service.
  Mr. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman anticipates my point. Like others, I have a great deal of respect for Sir Thomas Legg and Sir Robin Ibbs. However, in this case, not only a legal qualification but independence from Whitehall and from Government are essential for the credibility of the investigative process. I regret that the Foreign Secretary has not found himself able to go outside Whitehall. For example, he referred to Sir Robin Ibbs,

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  who, of course, had a distinguished career outside Whitehall but has been part of it in the very capacity to which the Foreign Secretary referred.
  Once a person has been appointed, he or she should be invited to consider whether the investigation should be in public, because issues involving the Security Service are obviously of great delicacy and sensitivity and, in some circumstances, the lives of people called to give evidence might be put at risk. Therefore, a decision about the extent to which the inquiry should be public ought to be left to the person of independence and detachment who will be called upon to conduct it.
  If the inquiry is to be credible, it will, as I think is conceded, inevitably have to consider the actions of Ministers—not only what they knew and when they knew it, in the rehearsal of the phrase that ultimately caused President Nixon to step down, but whether they exercised due diligence to find out. The question is not merely whether they knew, but whether they ought to have known. I echo last week's observation by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) when I say that another question for the inquiry is whether there is any substance in the allegation that the Government are relying on what came to be described as the Thomas a Becket defence.
  Out of this we should surely try to find some pointers for the future. That is why I say that the inquiry's remit should be to consider the need to require arms brokers who operate in the United Kingdom to be registered here and to be subject to licence, and to require all transactions in which they engage, irrespective of whether the arms pass through the United Kingdom, to be subject to the domestic licensing regime that operates here. Extra-territorial powers of that kind are not unprecedented. United Kingdom nationals who assist in the acquisition of chemical weapons capabilities by third parties are liable to prosecution under the Chemical Weapons Act 1996.
  Ms Abbott: I have a question for the hon. and learned Gentleman before we deal with the inquiry's remit. I have here a copy of the terms of reference that have been placed in the Library. Does he agree that it is curious that the term of reference that the inquiry will not have are to look into whether there was a breach of the United Nations embargo?
  Mr. Campbell: The hon. Lady has the advantage of me, because I have not seen the terms in detail. However, if the inquiry's first consideration is not whether United Nations Security Council resolution 1132 was breached, its conclusions will be substantially flawed. The Foreign Secretary demurred to the hon. Lady. If the terms of reference require further elucidation and expansion, it would be appropriate for him to give them so that that issue, which is fundamental to the inquiry, falls within its remit.
  The inquiry should also consider whether any application for licensing approval involving arms should be required to contain full details of the banking, insurance, credit and transport arrangements in the brokering of a particular transaction. Finally, it should consider the establishment of a Select Committee in the House of Commons to oversee arms export policy and to scrutinise individual applications.
  It is sometimes said that those are matters of commercial confidence, but if the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) can be trusted to oversee the
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  security services and GCHQ, surely either he or hon. Members of the same experience and integrity could be trusted to provide appropriate scrutiny of sensitive and potentially difficult arms exports.
  As the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs properly said, this is not arms to Iraq. Any efforts to suggest that it is are misplaced and mischievous. As I have said, Lord Justice Scott established that the previous Government had deliberately failed to inform Parliament of a change in Government policy in the supply of arms to Iraq and, in doing so, had failed to discharge their constitutional obligation of ministerial accountability. There is no evidence of any of that here, but the allegations that have emerged over the past weeks are damaging to the Foreign Office.
  The Attorney-General (Mr. John Morris): In view of the hon. and learned Gentleman's earlier remarks and those of the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), I can confirm that Customs and Excise has now reached a view and announced in the past few hours that proceedings should not be instituted against any person. I confirmed that decision, which was based on the particular circumstances leading up to the supply of arms—I emphasise that—and no other circumstances apply. I am grateful.
  Sir Nicholas Lyell rose—
  Mr. Campbell: Might I say that there will be those in the House who will want to consider carefully the terms of what the Attorney-General has just said? Perhaps some of them will want to press the point even now.
  Sir Nicholas Lyell: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman be interested, as I would be, to learn from the Attorney-General whether that decision was taken on evidential or public interest grounds, and whether he might elucidate that matter a little further?
  Mr. Campbell: This is a match that may have to be conducted in circumstances where I am not the court, as it were, but I have some small experience of prosecuting, not within this jurisdiction, but a little further north, and it was certainly my experience—prosecuting some time ago, it has to be said—that decisions not to proceed were never the subject of explanation. The only way in which an explanation of the sort that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) seeks from the Attorney-General, but through me, could be provided, would be if the Attorney-General were willing to provide that information. That is a point that he may have to take up with the Attorney-General directly.
  I deduce from what has been said that the decision was based on the view that there was insufficient likelihood of a conviction to justify taking proceedings. If that be so, and I return to a point that I made at the outset, I am firmly of the view that some of the descriptions—some of the use of language such as "hoo-hah" and "hype"—must have made some contribution to the view that the prospects of success were insufficient to warrant prosecution.
  The fact that there is no prosecution does not mean that the embargo was not broken, because the standard of proof required to bring home a criminal charge is proof

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  beyond reasonable doubt. That is a high standard. If we were asked to consider whether a UN embargo had been broken, most hon. Members would be satisfied with proof on a balance of probabilities.
  I go back to the point that I made before: even if there is no prosecution, it does not mean that no criminal offence was committed. Therefore, the Attorney-General's intervention does not take away from the inquiry's two fundamental and primary tasks: to establish whether there was a breach of the UN resolution and of criminal law.
  Mr. Grieve: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that, if what was said by the Foreign Secretary is correct—that Sandline sought approval from the Foreign Office for the export, or at least raised it and was told in unequivocal terms that it would be a breach—it becomes all the more remarkable that clear evidence is not there on which it could be prosecuted?
  Mr. Campbell: I think that we are about to have a tutorial on legal matters, which is well outwith the scope of the debate, but some of us, remembering the way in which the Matrix Churchill case came to an end, have formed the view that, no doubt with some success, Sandline's solicitors have legitimately been seeking to establish what one might call a Matrix Churchill defence in a public forum. That may be a partial answer to the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but if he wishes to pursue it at greater length, he will no doubt seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I have said already that I do not believe that these events have any parallel with the issue of the supply of arms to Iraq and the deliberate misleading of the House of Commons, but the allegations that have emerged over the past weeks are deeply damaging to the Foreign Office, to the Government and, ultimately, to the UK's interests. The allegations have not been made any less damaging by the way in which they have been dealt with, particularly in the past fortnight or so. It follows from that that the sooner the truth is known, the better.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Tom King: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have just had the advantage of an intervention by the Attorney-General, which I think the whole House appreciated because there was uncertainty. In his speech, the Foreign Secretary carefully used the phrase that Customs and Excise had completed its inquiry—he never said what it had done and whether there was to be no further prosecution; he said merely that it had completed its inquiry. The Attorney-General, exercising the right of a Law Officer to intervene in a debate, has now clarified the position. I understand that, if the House had wished to do so, it could have treated that as a Government statement, on which hon. Members could then have asked the Attorney-General questions.
  That moment has now passed, but the Attorney-General is helpfully here. I understand that he is not winding up the debate, but that the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), will be. Can we take it that, if any hon. Members now wish to raise points in the presence of the Attorney-General, the Minister of State will be able to answer questions that are effectively directed at the
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  Attorney-General, and that the Attorney-General will kindly brief him in the light of the responsibilities that he accepts that he now has under the new arrangements, for Customs and Excise prosecutions? Will the Minister of State be able to give answers to hon. Members, which obviously would help the House?
  Mr. Grieve: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understood the intervention of the Attorney-General to be in reply to the comments of the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), the Liberal Democrat spokesman. In those circumstances, there was no opportunity, as I understand it, legitimately for the Attorney-General to be questioned—as if he were making a statement. I seek clarification on that point because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) says, the moment has passed when we can ask the Attorney-General questions.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): The whole House will have heard the point that the Attorney-General made. As the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) suggested, in the light of the Attorney-General's remarks, it is for Ministers to respond to questions. They will do so in the way they feel fit.
  4.47 pm
  Mr. Donald Anderson: I propose to make four points, which I hope will help the House to look rationally at this important matter. First, I give the background. Sierra Leone is a friendly Commonwealth country. Since independence in 1961, it has been racked by a great deal of political turbulence, and it is one of the poorest countries in a very poor continent.
  That political turbulence reached its climax in May last year, when President Kabbah, who was democratically elected and internationally recognised, was overthrown by a military coup. All the relevant international organisations sought to have that position reversed and the President returned to power. They included the Organisation of African Unity and the Commonwealth, and of course we know that our Prime Minister invited President Kabbah as his personal guest to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh in October.
  Hence the UN Security Council passed resolution 1132 last year and an Order in Council was subsequently implemented, which came into effect on 1 November. We know that, ultimately, the legitimate president was returned to power, largely with the help of ECOMOG—a unit comprised mainly of Nigerian forces. Perhaps those who are now acclaiming Mr. Penfold, our high commissioner in Sierra Leone, and making him a national hero will be a little puzzled by the nature of the debate in this country.
  The matter first came before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs on 5 May. We were conducting an inquiry into what an ethical dimension to foreign policy means in practice. We were due to meet the Minister of State on the Tuesday following the bank holiday. It is fair to say that when he came before the Committee, he thought he was appearing before us on a different but related matter—the human rights report that the Government had published in April.
  As there had been considerable press interest in Sierra Leone over the weekend, it seemed proper to the Committee to deal with Sierra Leone in our questions to

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  the Minister. As he was not prepared, because he came to the Committee on another matter, he prefaced his remarks with a number of disclaimers and said that if he made errors he would correct them as soon as possible. The very next day—Wednesday 6 May—the Foreign Secretary responded to a private notice question and the Minister of State wrote to me, in my capacity as Chairman of the Committee, on the following Friday, saying that I should deem the Foreign Secretary's statement to be the answer to the Committee that had been promised.
  On Tuesday 12 May, the Committee met in private session. We were decidedly unhappy with the Minister's letter, which we did not think sufficient, and we asked him to provide us with a paragraph by paragraph correction of the evidence that he had given us the previous Tuesday. We also decided to ask the Foreign Secretary for the relevant telegrams sent from and to Conakry and Freetown from October last year. That request was refused: I shall return to that matter in a moment. The Minister of State has now written to us setting out a full response.
  That is largely the role that has been performed by the Committee. I have ensured that all the relevant documents—including the evidence given by Sir John Kerr, the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, to the Committee on Thursday 14 May, together with his correcting letter of that same afternoon; the two relevant evidence sessions; and the letters addressed to the Committee—are before the House, albeit in an uncorrected state, to inform this debate.
  Ms Abbott: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Select Committee is extremely unlucky? No sooner does a Minister or an official appear before it to give evidence on matters relating to Sierra Leone, than within hours they retract their evidence. Are we not an unlucky group of people?
  Mr. Anderson: That is an interesting observation. In all fairness, the Minister of State was appearing before the Committee on another matter, albeit related. That accounts for the fact that he was not as fully briefed as he would have liked to be. When Sir John Kerr came before the Committee, his memory failed him on a key matter and a correcting letter, addressed to the Committee, was sent that same afternoon. I hope that the House recognises that the Committee has done all that it can to deal with questions of interest to the House, and that the necessary information is now before the House to inform this debate.
  Obviously, one question that needs to be asked relates to the interpretation of the UN Security Council resolution. The aim of the resolution was consistent with the general wish of the international community to replace the illegal regime with the legal regime. However, the resolution does not say that; it puts the legal regime—which at that time was in exile in Conakry—and the illegal regime on a par in terms of arms supply. Naturally, the implementing Order in Council also makes no distinction between the legal and the illegal regimes. That is puzzling. Was it because of sloppy drafting?
  On any construction of the Order in Council, there must have been a technical breach of that order. According to the first schedule to the order, it is clear that arms are included and that any British national who supplies arms
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  to Sierra Leone—to either regime—is guilty of an offence. I note the interesting defence by Sandline, that it thought it had a licence. With a legal hat on, I would not like to appear before the chairman of the bench on a charge of not having a licence for a public house and say, "I have a virtual licence," or, "I thought I had a licence." That may or may not be good mitigation, but it is certainly not an answer to a charge.
  The only reason for not proceeding against Sandline is either on the ground of public interest and the overall wish of the international community, or that the surrounding circumstances are such that, given the relations between civil servants and Sandline, no jury would be likely to convict and we would simply have a costly exercise, the only beneficiaries of which would be the lawyers.
  I note that that argument was advanced in a letter to The Times last Friday from Berthan Macaulay, the special legal adviser to the Sierra Leone Government. I last met Mr. Macaulay when he was a defendant in another treason trial in Sierra Leone in 1967. It is good to see that he is still around. The idea that motive is sufficient to construe either the UN Security Council resolution or the Order in Council in such a way is wholly unsustainable. The construction is clear—there has been a technical breach of the UN embargo.
  We need to ask questions about the UN Security Council resolution. It may be that Sandline was initially supplying a very different sort of assistance to the Ecomog forces. It might have provided technical assistance, intelligence and training, in which case it would not have been in breach of the resolution, which is essentially a ban on arms supply. It may have been like the United States forces in Vietnam, who began as military advisers, but gradually slipped into a combat role. It may be that those in the Foreign Office who were well aware of Sandline's activities believed that they comprised assistance that did not breach the UN embargo. It is only at a much later stage that the question of arms supply arose. As we now know, the relatively small number of arms that were supplied arrived after the battle for Freetown was already over.
  The role of the intelligence services may well be another complicating matter, but no more than that.
  The House will therefore have to examine events in the light of the United Nations Security Council resolution, and also the activities of Mr. Flynn, who was the special adviser to the Foreign Secretary. We have heard rather little about Mr. Flynn's activities.
  I should like now to deal with the matters raised by the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), who speaks with great distinction on behalf of the Liberal Democrat party, and Lord Avebury's letter of February 1998, addressed to the Foreign Office official. We will have to examine why there was a time lapse between receipt of the letter and action on it, after the matter was referred, on 10 March 1998, to the Foreign Office legal adviser.
  More specifically, we will have to discover why the Minister of State was placed in an embarrassing position, through no fault of his own, by not being briefed before replying to the Adjournment debate of 12 March 1998 initiated by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). Surely the sensitivity of the matter should have been known by the date of that debate.

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  After 12 March, why was there a further time lapse—until some time in the middle of April—until the matter was submitted for noting to the Minister of State? Surely it was known by then that the matter was sensitive and that the Minister had not been briefed adequately on 12 March. We will have to ask questions, not only about that lapse, but about subsequent events that have been detailed in the Sandline letter.
  Many interesting issues will have to be addressed by the distinguished leader of the investigation, and by his assessor—who also knows his way around Whitehall, and is very well tried in management methods and private industry.
  What options remain open to the House and to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee—which I have the honour of chairing? I heard the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) mention a public inquiry, the first option. He knows as well as I do that such an inquiry would take a long time to complete its work. Lawyers may be involved in such an inquiry, whereas I think that the House would like answers to a relatively narrow range of questions. The matter does not involve the time scale involved in bovine spongiform encephalopathy, for example, or the complexity of the arms-to-Iraq affair. I am sure that the House would like the inquiry to report as speedily as possible.
  Although I understand the wish of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe to dress up the matter by equating it with the arms-to-Iraq affair, I do not think that the British public will fall for such a comparison. They realise that such an effort would be—to use a current phrase—well over the top.
  I therefore do not think that a full public inquiry would meet our needs. I accept the assurances of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs that the inquiry will be a speedy one, and that it will be conducted by very experienced and tried people, whom he has announced.
  The role of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee is to serve as the arm of the House in monitoring the Government's actions, specifically the actions of the Foreign Office. Basic questions and shortcomings are likely to arise and to be revealed during our investigations. Such questions include what civil servants said to Ministers; who knew what and—perhaps as important—who should have known; and why Ministers were not adequately briefed in a matter of such importance.
  I believe that there is a role for the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. However, I should hope, first, that every hon. Member realises that the Committee has acted properly in the investigations that we have conducted so far—both in questioning the Minister of State and the permanent under-secretary, and in ensuring that all the relevant documents are before the House for this debate.
  The Foreign Affairs Select Committee's role should not stop at our actions to date. The Committee should now press forward, although it will be for the Committee itself to decide on the next steps. Perhaps it would be unwise to attempt to duplicate or parallel the inquiry being conducted under the auspices of the Foreign Office, which will publish its report. If that report is published speedily, there will indeed be another job to be done. That job can be done only by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, on behalf of the House.
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  I hope that the Foreign Secretary will understand the Committee's role. I hope that the House will realise that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee is eager to do its parliamentary job, on behalf of the House. I believe that we shall not be found wanting in that task.
  5 pm
  Sir John Stanley: I found quite breathtaking the Foreign Secretary's claim—in responding to the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard)—that there had been "no failure of the British Government's policy towards Sierra Leone". However, if the Government's clearly stated policy of resolving the issue by peaceful means had been observed, the junta would still be in place in Sierra Leone. It is extraordinary for the Foreign Secretary to claim that there has been "no failure of the British Government's policy", when the transition to democracy in Sierra Leone was achieved by a policy that was precisely the reverse of the one adopted by the British Government.
  Right from the outset, the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers have made it clear that the only policy option that they were ready to contemplate was one of resolving the crisis by peaceful means. I have dug out an answer given to me—as far back as 11 July 1997—by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd). He specifically stated that the Government's policy was to achieve a "peaceful solution". That policy was reflected in the United Nations resolution.
  Perhaps the point that was most illustrative of the Government's policy was made by Baroness Symons, who said in another place:
  "we do not endorse the ECOMOG action."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 March 1998; Vol. 587, c. 100.]
  Given the absolutely clear and consistent repudiation of the use of the military option, it really does not stand examination for the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister to continue claiming that, in some way, the British Government's policy has been responsible for restoring democracy in Sierra Leone.
  I should like to deal with the issue of the possible breach of the arms embargo in Sierra Leone within the context of the Government's overall foreign policy. Ministers have made it clear that the centrepiece of their foreign policy is to put foreign policy on what they describe as an "ethical basis". Time and again, they have made the point that arms control is a central part of such a policy. Moreover, Foreign Office Ministers have repeatedly told us that their proposal to the European Union of operating a new code of conduct on arms exports demonstrates the ethical basis of the Government's foreign policy.
  Arms control is a far wider issue than the Government's trivialisation of it—by describing the embargo, for example, as a "hoo-hah"—would seem to indicate. The Government are engaged in enforcement of not only one arms embargo. A very helpful list provided in Hansard—on 28 January 1998, in answer to a question tabled by the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. King)—showed that, at that date, the British Government were operating a total of 17 arms embargoes in addition to the one on Sierra Leone. My right hon. and learned Friend

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  the Member for Folkestone and Hythe might like to take an interest in the remaining 17 embargoes, to determine how they are being operated.
  So the Government have made arms embargoes and arms control a major part of their foreign policy, with the ethical dimension, at least in a rhetorical sense, accorded the utmost importance. Against that background, it is ludicrous for the Government to dismiss this issue as mere hoo-hah and trivial. The fact is that, the very first time the Government's arms control policy has come under pressure in this Parliament, it has broken apart, so it is a very serious matter.
  One central question remains unanswered, and from what the Foreign Secretary said today, it appears that the inquiry that he has set up will deal with it. That question is whether the Government machine was wholly behind Ministers in the execution of the embargo against Sierra Leone, or whether some part of the Government machine was in effect acquiescing in a breach of that policy. Of course, the answer will come out in the findings of the inquiry, but what I find extraordinary about the whole business is the position of Sandline. We are dealing not with a secretive company that was operating covertly, but with one which, according to all the evidence available to date, was operating quite overtly.
  There is one material discrepancy between what the Foreign Secretary told us today and what the permanent secretary told the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs last week. The Foreign Secretary said that there had been one meeting between the Foreign Office and Sandline, whereas the permanent secretary told the Select Committee that there had been a great many telephone calls from Mr. Spicer to the Foreign Office. Indeed, he made a virtue of the fact that Foreign Office officials had been instructed not to put the telephone down on Mr. Spicer.
  The permanent secretary also said that there had been at least one meeting with Mr. Spicer in the Foreign Office building itself,, and, drawing on his memory—as is clear from the transcript of the evidence—he said that there might also have been meetings between Mr. Spicer and British high commission officials in Conakry. That suggests a much greater degree of contact between Sandline and the Foreign Office. In addition, as we know, the Sandline helicopter operation was carried out in full public view, as has been well recorded in the media.
  In other words, we are dealing with a British company which was acting quite overtly and whose operations appear to have been known to a considerable number of officials. Given that Sandline was operating so overtly, why were not officials all over Whitehall and beyond blowing the whistle on it? So far, or certainly up until the point at which we finished with Sir John Kerr's evidence last week, only two whistleblowers have been identified, and neither comes from within the Government machine.
  The first whistleblower was Lord Avebury. He wrote to the head of the west Africa department in the Foreign Office on 5 February. As we learned from Sir John Kerr, that letter was copied and made available to the restrictive enforcement unit at its meeting on 18 February. It is surprising that Foreign Office officials had not got it to all members of that unit well before the meeting, but we were told that it was apparently circulated to that important unit on the day of the meeting.
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  According to Sir John Kerr's evidence, the whistle was also blown by the Canadian newspapers. Apparently, the Canadian newspaper reports were the ones attached to the formal submission by the Foreign Office when it made its request to Customs and Excise to carry out an investigation. It is extraordinary that a Customs and Excise investigation is initiated when a British company has acted in a conspicuously overt way in breaching an embargo, but that, as of today, only two sources have emerged as having questioned Sandline's operations in relation to United Kingdom law and the United Nations Security Council resolution.
  Were officials in Whitehall and beyond vigorously supporting the arms embargo against Sierra Leone—I think that this issue should be of much more interest to the Government than it appears to be—or were some acquiescing in a breach of the arms embargo policy? That fundamental question remains unanswered. The present account of events is wholly inexplicable, certainly to any hon. Member who has served in government.
  It is incumbent on the Government to take the story back to before 18 February, which is the first date on which it appears the Whitehall machine took notice of Sandline and agreed that the matter should be referred to Customs and Excise. The House is entitled to know whether officials were supporting a Government policy, endorsed by Order in Council and approved by the House, or whether some were acquiescing in a breach of that policy. That is the key information that the House is entitled to have made available to it very soon.
  5.16 pm
  Mr. David Winnick: Many of the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley) will undoubtedly be dealt with by the inquiry which the Foreign Secretary announced today. It is right and proper that those issues should be examined. They are important, and the House is entitled to know what happened. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) rightly mentioned the role of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in this connection. I have every confidence that the inquiry will investigate thoroughly all the matters that have been raised.
  There was undoubtedly a breach of the arms embargo. That is one important matter that the inquiry will examine. I am not an apologist for Sandline. I do not know that organisation's motives for doing what it did. It will no doubt tell us—it would be surprising if it were otherwise—that its only concern was to restore and support democratic government. That may be so, but I have a healthy and perhaps understandable suspicion of organisations that deal in arms, and I am not likely to lose that suspicion.
  The Security Council resolution to which frequent reference has been made was concerned first and foremost with the junta that had taken power from a democratic Government. It is clear to anyone who reads resolution 1132 that it was concerned with the restoration of democratic government in Sierra Leone. We have to consider it in that light. As I said, I am no apologist for the breaching of any arms embargo or of any Order in Council, but I make a distinction—I see no reason why I should not, even if it is not spelled out clearly in resolution 1132—between a legitimate Government who have been overthrown and a junta. After all, when

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  numerous Security Council resolutions were passed to condemn the apartheid state in South Africa and demand an arms embargo from member states, surely a clear distinction was made between the objective of those resolutions—to condemn the apartheid state—and the liberation movement.
  If there was a fault, perhaps it lay in the framing of the Security Council resolution, which emphasises that only peaceful means should be used to get rid of the junta. That gives rise to an obvious question: if only peaceful means had been applied, what Government would Sierra Leone have now? How long would it have been before the junta was overthrown by peaceful means and negotiations? Those are important questions, although I am not saying that, if the arms embargo was broken by British firms, that should be condoned.
  Ms Abbott rose—
  Mr. Winnick: I give way to my hon. Friend, who has a puzzled frown.
  Ms Abbott: With his usual bravura and flair, my hon. Friend has expounded the fashionable theory about the UN resolution: that it was ambiguous and did not mean what it was intended to mean. Does he accept that the Government played a part in drafting that resolution, so, if anyone is to blame for the lack of clarity, it is Her Majesty's Government? Does he accept also that the Orders in Council that we passed are not ambiguous; they are perfectly clear—we are not supposed to have sold arms to or traded arms with anyone involved in the situation in Sierra Leone?
  Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend only emphasises what I said. I am not an apologist for the breaking of the arms embargo, and I am not in favour of operations such as Sandline, but I asked legitimate questions. If only peaceful means had been applied, what sort of Government or authority would there now be in that country in west Africa? It may well be that the resolution could have been better framed. It is not unknown, even within the Labour party, for the drafting of such well-meaning resolutions to need improvement. There is not much difference between my position and that of my hon. Friend.
  At the weekend, I read a comment that there is no real difference between the Government being restored in Sierra Leone and the rebel forces. I do not accept that. First, genuine elections took place on 26 and 27 February 1996. The Commonwealth observer group reported that the elections undoubtedly allowed those registered voters an opportunity to vote freely and without interference. There seems to be no doubt that those were genuine elections, and we welcomed them at the time.
  On 11 March 1996, Baroness Chalker, who has been much involved in elections in various parts of the world, welcomed in the other place "the favourable judgment" of the international observers I have just mentioned. Sierra Leone had an elected Government, after all the coups and dictatorships, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) rightly mentioned, since the country ceased to be a colony in 1961.
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  The forces against the elected Government have continued to operate. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) may be interested to know that, in a report from Freetown in The Guardian on Saturday, Gary Younge said that the controversy in the countryside relates to a different form of arms—the arms and legs that are being cut off by the rebel forces. In the local hospital there are many casualties of the rebel forces, who have not given up, although they have been cleared out of the capital.
  The report in The Guardian also said:
  "All the fuss in England about arms being sent in support of President Kabbah's restoration … is being raised by people who do not know the pain that Sierra Leone has been through. If they did, they would not pick diplomatic nits over who in British officialdom knew what, when, or about which UN resolution was violated in exporting arms to oust the junta."
  I emphasise again, so that there is no misunderstanding, that I am not in favour of arms embargoes being broken. Orders in Council should be observed, and the inquiry must examine the matter, but the people concerned have suffered under a dictatorship, if only for a short time, the atrocities committed by the rebels who have been ousted from the main part of the country. Perhaps understandably, even though they are Africans—Conservative Members perhaps do not understand the wish of people in Africa, like those in Europe, to live under a democratic Government—they do not take a nit-picking attitude. They are simply pleased that once again they have a democratic Government.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: The hon. Gentleman is taking a tremendously long time to tell us what we know already; perhaps he will tell us one or two things that we do not know. Is he saying that it was right and a good thing for that vicious regime to be overthrown by force? I think he is, and, if so, must he not condemn his Government for having drafted and signed up to a UN Security Council resolution that, in his own admission, made it most unlikely that the regime could be overthrown by force?
  The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways: either it was right for the regime to be overthrown by force, in which case the Government were wrong to sign up to the resolution, or it was wrong for the regime to be overthrown by force, in which case the Government were right to sign up to the resolution.
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman is simply trying to be clever. Of course it is not possible in every case where a Government have been overthrown to say that military force should have been used. The Opposition did not criticise Security Council resolution 1132 at the time it was passed.
  Surely it is right and proper that, in a debate such as this we should ask, although the resolution referred to peaceful means, whether it is possible to get rid of such a junta without force. That is a legitimate question. It does not mean that the British Government had to say, in relation to Sierra Leone or other countries where democratic Governments have been overthrown, that military force should be used, but, as a Back Bencher, I raise that question. I have already said that there may have been a defect in the resolution.

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  I wonder how much the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who is nit picking, is concerned with democracy, in Africa or elsewhere.
  Dr. Lewis rose—
  Mr. Winnick: That was a rhetorical question, but if the hon. Gentleman is so keen to intervene, I will give way.
  Dr. Lewis: My record of supporting democracy against totalitarian regimes is a great deal better than that of the vast majority of Labour Members, including the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), as I will point out if I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman did not protest when the Government in Chile were overthrown, and he did not protest against the junta in Argentina, so that is hypocrisy.
  Mr. Malcolm Savidge: Does my hon. Friend agree that, according to most reports, the actions of ECOMOG forces, not the arming of people in Sierra Leone, led to the overthrow of the military junta?
  Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct.
  Mr. Bayley: It seems that the great democrat, the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), has not read the UN Security Council resolution. Had he done so, he would have realised that it mentions ECOMOG, the military observer group of the Economic Community of West African States, and gives it a role.
  Mr. Winnick: Indeed, although the resolution goes on to say that the overthrow should be achieved by negotiation and peaceful means. These matters are of importance not because of nit-picking or whether a Minister gave this answer or that answer, but because, as we approach the next century, we should be concerned with trying to establish democratic government in all countries on all continents. To do so is essential.
  In considering arms and presumed arms scandals, which the Opposition are so keen to build up today, it is important that those who criticise do so with clean hands. I find it very difficult to take seriously the concerns expressed today by former Ministers and former Government Back Benchers who made no protest over the export of arms to Iraq—to the most murderous dictatorship of Saddam Hussein—and who allowed arms to be exported to Argentina, right up to the very day of the Falklands invasion.
  Yes, there are points in this matter that need to be considered and, yes, it is right for my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to set up an inquiry, but to try to compare this matter with some great scandal along the lines of arms to Iraq or arms to the Argentine junta is absolute nonsense. The matter must be considered in its proper light. That is why I believe that my hon. Friends will have no hesitation in supporting the Government's amendment.
  5.30 pm
  Sir Raymond Whitney: The speech of the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) was a fascinating insight into not only the confusion that reigns in his mind but the confusion that reigns on the Labour Benches generally. Over the years, the hon. Gentleman has sought assiduously to build a reputation as a high-minded peace campaigner—I do not think that he would resile from that definition—but, in his speech today, we saw another persona. We saw a swashbuckling advocate of a coup de main to whom the end always justifying the means. One might normally find such a characteristic on the Conservative Benches, not among the ranks of the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Winnick: I hope that I am a campaigner for peace. The hon. Gentleman should, however, know that I enthusiastically supported the British forces in the invasion of the Falklands and was the first person in the House of Commons to demand military action against Saddam Hussein. I am afraid that my speech today represents no departure.
  Sir Raymond Whitney: I do not want to damage the hon. Gentleman's reputation, but I must say that his reputation for consistency is seriously in jeopardy. I advise him to read in tomorrow's Hansard what he has just said. I think that he will be a little regretful of the extraordinary dichotomy of views.
  The confusion in the mind of the hon. Member is completely outmatched by the Government's extraordinary confusion and the farrago of nonsense that they have presented over the past fortnight. My charge against the Foreign Secretary is not based on any allegation that he may have misled the House, been economical with the truth or turned 180 deg, having discovered that what he considered a serious event his Prime Minister thought was a little hoo-hah. All those allegations may be true; I suspect that many consider that they are. My charge against the Foreign Secretary—I am sorry that he is not present—is that, over the past year, he has not only presided over, but has been responsible for, the virtual destruction of a considerable asset: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
  I joined the Foreign Office in 1964 and was privileged to be a junior Foreign Office Minister, so I recognise that I am somewhat parti pris—I may be a little biased. Having been a member of that institution does, however, give me some right to know how it is respected throughout the world. It is a convention in smarty-pants writing in the press and among business men who sometimes cannot manage their own affairs to denigrate the Foreign Office, but those who really know—the business men who understand how to get the best out of the Foreign Office and the political commentators who understand the complexities of international relations—appreciate that it is a great national asset.
  It is an occupational hazard of Foreign Offices in any country to be the messengers from overseas, delivering messages that are not always welcome to domestic Governments. Countries and interests that conflict with our interests and obligations have somehow, sometimes, to be reconciled. It is my strong view that, year after year, in the conduct of foreign policy, in the reconciliation of the real world with British national objectives, the Foreign

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  Office has a very fine record. The high regard in which our Foreign Office was—as has been suggested—held in the rest of the world should be recognised.
  With regard to the affair in Sierra Leone, we have been invited day after day over the past fortnight to believe the unbelievable. We have been asked, for example, to believe that a group—not one person, but a group—of senior and middle-ranking officials in the Foreign Office and other Departments have conspired to work against the declared policy of Her Majesty's Government. That is totally unbelievable. Anyone who has had the slightest experience in the Foreign Office—be it at official or ministerial level—knows that the opposite has been so.
  Indeed, I think that the trend has moved in the wrong direction. Over the years, officials have insisted more and more on clearance, one level up, for anything—certainly anything of the nature of the matter that we are debating. It is totally impossible that this matter could have been continued or launched without any suggestion that political ministerial clearance should be obtained. That has been the trend for many years. When I was a junior Minister, I tried to counter it. I said, "Come on, chaps, you are high-powered people, you are paid to do a lot. Okay, there is political responsibility, but the balance is shifting in the wrong direction." However, the trend has continued.
  It is even more inconceivable that, given a new Labour Government, the Foreign Office would have responded in such a way over the past 12 months. On the contrary, officials, to whom, obviously, I am no longer directly connected, would have been even more cautious given a new Government, a very hefty political mandate, something called an ethical foreign policy and a new Foreign Secretary who is—how charitable should I be—not exactly emotionally in tune with the Foreign Office's mores and approach.
  I shall not go too much into the affairs of the Foreign Secretary's diary secretary, and all the rest of it; suffice it to say that he performed appallingly in India and Pakistan. We are told what a clever man he is, but it was not very clever of him to think that he could say one thing to the Pakistanis, quite the opposite to the Indians, and get away with it. Of course, he did not get away with it. He did not get away with many things, and everyone knows that.
  Mr. Denis MacShane: Nonsense.
  Sir Raymond Whitney: Someone shouts, "Nonsense." Let them challenge what I have said. How on earth can Labour Members explain what happened in India and Pakistan except by saying that the Foreign Secretary was trying to be too clever by half? Everyone knows that that is exactly what happened. We are being asked to believe that Foreign Office officials said that they would go ahead, break the arms embargo and get into bed with a private company, and to hell with the Foreign Office.
  Now we are being asked to believe that the Foreign Office lost a telegram. That seems to be accepted in all reports. The Foreign Office does not lose telegrams. To put it at its most basic, they are serially numbered; when Washington telegram 1003 arrives, and the last one received was Washington 1001, someone in the great machine will ask what happened to 1002.
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  Let us assume that a telegram comes from the high commissioner in Sierra Leone, saying that he has decided to have a go at breaking the arms embargo. Is it conceivable that the private offices of the Minister of State or the Secretary of State would just shove it to the bottom of a pile, put it in a box, and, when it came back, say, "Well, we know that the Foreign Secretary is too busy thinking great thoughts and does not want to get involved in detail, so perhaps he has not initialled it, but never mind, let us pass it on"? That is unbelievable nonsense.
  Mr. Tony Baldry: Does my hon. Friend—a fellow former Foreign Office Minister—agree that it is truly incredible to believe that any telegram from the high commissioner in Sierra Leone that related to these matters would not have been put in the Minister's box? It is simply unbelievable that a telegram of that importance did not go into a box—whether it was read is, of course, another matter.
  Sir Raymond Whitney: I would go further than my hon. Friend. It would be put in the box, and when a telegram of that importance came back unticked, any private secretary would have gone to the Minister to ask whether he had seen it and understood its import. We are asked to believe that, before the Minister of State appeared before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs to discuss Sierra Leone, he was not told that the Foreign Office had asked Customs and Excise to examine the breach of regulations. That is just one more unbelievable proposition.
  The final nail in the coffin occurred last week, and concerned the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office. I have known Sir John Kerr for perhaps 35 years, and he is, by anyone's definition, an intelligent man. What happened last week was not the action of an intelligent man. It cannot be explained by Sir John's getting it wrong, being unclear or having an uncertain memory. He knew how important was his examination by the Select Committee. He is a man of meticulous industry, coupled with intelligence. It is unbelievable that he got into the mess he did; but, when he went back to the Foreign Office that lunchtime, something funny happened on the way to King Charles street—I say no more than that.
  Dr. Jenny Tonge: The hon. Gentleman has repeated the word "unbelievable" over and over. I appreciate that, as an ex-civil servant, he wishes to defend his ex-chums, but I remind him that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was capable in the early 1980s of losing an entire report on the condition of the Montserrat volcano. That report did not surface for more than 10 years. I fear that the Foreign Office is capable of losing and forgetting things.
  Sir Raymond Whitney: The hon. Lady must refer to a little internecine warfare between what is now called the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office. That is quite another matter. She is on completely the wrong track.
  Dr. Tonge: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir Raymond Whitney: I am sorry, but I must finish.

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  The onus is on the Foreign Secretary himself. We must understand why he refuses, against all evidence and all precedent, to have a proper examination by an independent agency—a High Court judge—at a public hearing. This is the most extraordinary development. It is not some little matter—as some Labour Members and members of the press occasionally argue—but a fundamental undermining of a great asset of the nation, which can be restored only by some serious reconsideration by the Foreign Secretary of his position.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind the House that a large number of Members are trying to catch my eye, and it would be helpful if speeches could be kept a little shorter.
  5.44 pm
  Ms Diane Abbott: It is regrettable that the House may lose sight of the serious issues underlying recent events in the parliamentary tit for tat. It is to those issues that I want to address my remarks.
  Sierra Leone is not some far-off country of which we know nothing. It is a member of the Commonwealth, and we have a long-standing historical connection with it, and moral responsibility for it. One of my themes will be that, because of its position as a member of the Commonwealth, and because of our responsibilities, some people might have expected Ministers to keep a closer eye on events. What matters is not only whether the good guys won—this week or next week—but the process by which they did it and the implications that that will have for the future of Sierra Leone and a whole region torn by instability, which includes Liberia and Nigeria.
  Hon. Members who have spoken have been told that they are not really interested in Sierra Leone. Perhaps I can be excused that slur: I am a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I have a long-standing interest in Africa and the Commonwealth, and my constituency contains large numbers of people from Sierra Leone who have come to me since before last May's election to tell me what their Government are doing, and to tell me their fears and hopes.
  The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) said that Sierra Leone is a poor country. The saddest thing is that it is not. Sierra Leone has bauxite and gold; it exports cocoa and coffee. Above all, Sierra Leone exports diamonds. One of the most serious underlying issues is that the country is potentially rich, and it ought to be able to guarantee each of its citizens a decent standard of living, decent health care and decent housing. If it is impoverished today, it is because of recurrent political instability, and because of a type of underhand western intervention and the activities of mercenaries.
  That is why this issue is not just a hoo-hah. That is why it matters. When we trace the threads of the affair, and the relationships between Government officials, mercenaries, diamond dealers, arms dealers and financiers, we see the pattern that underlies much of the tragedy and instability across the region. That is why some of us have taken a consistent interest in the affair.
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  Let me remind the House of the history of Sierra Leone since it was made independent in 1961. There was an army coup in 1967, when the governor-general had to leave. In April 1968, there was a counter-coup. In 1967, the presidential election had only one candidate—we might call that the premature-Abacha model. In 1978, a one-party state was introduced. In 1982, the elections were ruined by violence. In 1987, there was an attempted coup, the leaders of which were executed. In 1992, there was a counter-coup, and a military regime was installed under Captain Valentine Strasser.
  In 1996, there was another coup, by Strasser's deputy. There was also the election of which we have heard so much, but the House needs to be reminded that the backdrop to the election was civil war, instability and incursion by Liberian troops—which highlights the complication of the relationship between Sierra Leone and Liberia. There were also the activities of the South African-based mercenaries—Executive Outcomes—who are closely connected with Sandline. Between 1996 and 1997, there were four coup attempts against President Kabbah. In 1997, there was Koroma's coup.
  I set out those dates not to impress the House with my knowledge of recent events, but to highlight the fact that the tragic history of Sierra Leone has been one of coup and counter-coup, mercenary intervention and counter-intervention, civil war, rape and—above all—constant bloody armed struggle for control of resources. That is why what matters is not which side wins this month, this year or the next, but the process. That process—western intervention, mercenaries, gun running and diamond dealers—has reduced the people of Sierra Leone to the poverty that we see today, and is causing the people from Sierra Leone I know so much anguish and anxiety.
  That is why it is wrong to dismiss this whole affair as "hoo-hah". We are talking about a pattern of events that has reduced that potentially rich region—when Britain left it, post-empire, it was potentially wealthy and could have guaranteed its people a decent standard of living—and the adjoining regions to the state in which we see them today. The House is focusing on that pattern of events.
  Ministers have told us that President Kabbah is pleased to have been reinstated, and I am sure he is, but I suspect that ordinary people in Sierra Leone would have been even more pleased if there could have been a peaceful resolution, and more pleased still if this Government were pursuing policies that would once and for all draw a line under Sierra Leone's bloody history of mercenaries, coups and counter-coups. From what I heard in the Select Committee and read in newspapers, it is not clear that the Government have been pursuing such policies. Even if their policies represent a good outcome this week, it is not clear that they represent a definite departure from that terrible history.
  As a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, I was glad to hear its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), tell the House that he sees a role for that Committee in looking into these events, and that we would press ahead with that work. Many hon. Members welcome that. However, I must take this opportunity to talk about the evidence that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd,) gave the Committee. Those of us who have queried it, or who have even asked questions of the Minister of State, have been roundly

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  abused for not showing sufficient loyalty towards the Labour Government. We have been accused of nit-picking and self-importance.
  In a modern Government, as we approach the millennium, given the large and varied scope of Government activities, Select Committees play a key role in ensuring the accountability of Ministers. If Ministers are to be accountable to the House and ultimately to the people we represent, it is fundamentally important that they come before Select Committees in good faith and that they do not mislead the Committees of the House, either intentionally or unintentionally. When the Minister of State came before the Select Committee, he made not merely errors of interpretation, but a number of statements that have since been proven to be false. For example, he said:
  "because there is an outside inquiry by Customs and Excise at this moment in time we could not authorise an independent inquiry."
  Well, what do you know, the Foreign Secretary came before us the very next day and told us that he had authorised an independent inquiry. The Minister of State also said:
  "the first I knew of this story was also on Friday night and there has not been a chance for me to be briefed beyond what the Foreign Secretary had issued by way of statements over the weekend."
  We now know that papers went to the Minister of State rather earlier than that.
  I cannot boast that I have been a Minister, as other hon. Members have, but I was a career civil servant and I know this: when a Minister is sent a document for noting, he is supposed to read it. To talk of documents being sent to Ministers for noting as though it were some abstract process in which there is no connection between the information on the page and the Minister's brain is clearly contrary to everything that I know about the way in which a private office operates. I am grateful for this opportunity, even as a humble ex-administration grade civil servant, to put that on the record.
  Even during his evidence, the Minister of State contradicted himself. He said:
  "I have not had an opportunity to speak to the Foreign Secretary."
  A few paragraphs later, he said:
  "I spoke briefly to the Foreign Secretary over the weekend."
  He said:
  "I am only aware of Sandline's activities in terms of what has been reported in the newspapers",
  and, later:
  "Clearly I have read the newspapers, I have information from that base".
  I could continue, but I will not do so because I hope that the Select Committee will have the Minister of State back in person to explain a series of misrepresentations to the Committee.
  I say sincerely that, for me and for many Labour party supporters outside the House, it is not good enough for Ministers to tell the Select Committee that all they know of events in Sierra Leone is what they read in the newspapers. Many people outside the House who worked for 18 long years to return a Labour Government believed that that Government would take Commonwealth issues and those relating to the rule of law there and, indeed, to Africa, far more seriously than the previous Government.
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  It may cut ice with the Opposition, but it cuts no ice with Labour supporters to hear the Government say that they are merely replicating the procedures that obtained under the Conservative Government. Millions of people outside the House expect something rather better from a Labour Government.
  Mr. Winnick: I hope that I am also capable of criticising the Government, but I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has touched on the central point. She says that the Labour Government should give a lead and so forth in the Commonwealth. Will she say how we should have dealt with the junta? Was it right to take the view that only peaceful means could get rid of it? Or does she think that in certain circumstances military means—although certainly not the sort of methods that were used—should be used?
  Ms Abbott: My hon. Friend asks a reasonable question, and I would ask one of him. Of all the members of the Security Council the British Government were bound to have the best, the most long-standing and the most up-to-date knowledge of events in Sierra Leone. If, at the point of drafting the resolution, the Government thought that it would not be possible to remove the junta by peaceful means, why on earth did they draft the resolution in those terms? Why did we pass the Orders in Council in those terms?
  Colleagues cannot get away with the spin of the day, which is, "Oh, well. The UN resolution was a bit vague and woolly. No one knows what it meant." We knew what it meant—we were on the Security Council and we knew more about Sierra Leone than anyone else. If we thought that it was not possible to remove that regime by peaceful means, we should never have put our name to that resolution.
  I cannot leave the subject of the Minister of State's evidence to the Select Committee without referring to Sir John Kerr. I have not known him as long as many other hon. Members have, but I must say that for someone of his eminence to come before the Select Committee and then, within hours, to use the rather inept formulation that he had had the opportunity to reflect and look at the files, is not credible. Sir John Kerr must have known that when Ministers knew was at the heart of parliamentary interest in this issue. We are asked to believe that he made a genuine error about when Ministers knew, which is beyond belief. If he really made an error of that nature, the civil service is not what it was when I was a trainee.
  In the tit for tat and media frenzy about the issue, a number of questions have been asked over and again. What did Ministers know and when did they know? I would ask a third question, which is why did they not find out? As someone who worked in the civil service, albeit as an administration trainee, I know that there would have been a wealth of information about the meetings with Sandline. There would have been memoranda, minutes, telegrams and Security Service briefings.
  I have to take Ministers at their word when they say that they did not know, but, if they did not know, I want to know, as someone who is genuinely interested in Africa and who realises that many people in Africa look to this Government to take a stronger and more ethical interest in them than previous Governments have done, why Ministers did not ask. I do not believe that, if civil servants had been asked to give the fullest possible

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  briefing, they would have held back information. Whenever I have heard the Government's version of events, the question that has gone through my mind over and again is not what Ministers knew, but why they did not ask.
  I am surprised that the inquiry's terms of reference, which are in the Library, contain nothing about whether UN sanctions were breached. They say:
  "The investigation will look into these allegations with a view to establishing … what was known by Government officials … and Ministers … whether any official encouragement or approval was given to such plans … and … if so, on what authority".
  A breach of UN sanctions is not mentioned. I was a humble civil servant, but I learned a thing or two about how to fix an inquiry. Opposition Members have focused on who will conduct the inquiry, but, as an ex-trainee mandarin, I know that one way in which to fix an inquiry is through the terms of reference. How strange that, after all the debates on UN sanctions—on not only Sierra Leone, but Iraq—this well-trumpeted inquiry should be set up with nothing in the terms of reference about whether UN sanctions had been breached.
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: The hon. Lady conducts a penetrating analysis of the terms of reference. Does she agree that it is all the more strange to appoint as the chairman of the inquiry someone who, although he is described as a distinguished lawyer, will not, under the terms of reference, have to exercise his legal expertise?
  Ms Abbott: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. The chairman is said to be a distinguished lawyer, yet he is not supposed to look into the central legal issue—whether UN sanctions were breached.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: In support of the hon. Lady's point, may I remind the House that, on 6 May, the Foreign Secretary stated:
  "I accept that if there has been a breach, that is a very serious matter which must be fully and openly investigated so that the full facts can be established."—[Official Report, 6 May 1998; Vol. 311, c. 726.]?
  Ms Abbott: I am at a loss. It is hard to square the terms of reference with the focus of the debate on Sierra Leone so far—it has been like Hamlet without the prince. We shall have an independent inquiry—the Foreign Affairs Select Committee will consider with all due energy the areas into which we believe that we can usefully inquire.
  Ministers may have paid insufficient attention to Sierra Leone because they thought that little events in some Commonwealth country were marginal to the Government's big picture—I do not know. However, the Government should remember that many of the people—in this country and abroad—who waited long years for a Labour Government hoped for a different approach to foreign affairs, in terms not only of ethics, but of rebuilding and breathing new life into our relations with the Commonwealth.
  Many people in this country and in the Commonwealth are looking to what the Government now do and say about Sierra Leone. They want to know whether the Government are genuinely interested in and committed to Commonwealth countries such as Sierra Leone. The Commonwealth may not be terribly new Labour, but we owe it a moral and political debt. For as long as some of us are Members of Parliament, we shall try to ensure that that debt is paid.
  6.3 pm
  Sir Peter Emery: In following the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who is one of my companions on the Foreign Affairs Committee, I make it absolutely clear that this debate is meant not as criticism of what happened in Sierra Leone—I am delighted that the democratic Government were restored; if force was necessary, so be it—but to hold the Foreign Office to account about the proceedings and to determine whether it was efficient in dealing with the problem.
  My worry is that the Foreign Secretary has decided not to hold the inquiry in public. If it is carried out by someone who has spent the whole of his working life in the civil service, assisted by someone else who has spent much of his working life in the civil service, and comes out in support of the Government, some people will shout whitewash—anyone who denies that does not live in the real world. Why not—as the Labour party demanded time and again in opposition—refer the matter to the Foreign Affairs Committee? It could conduct an inquiry in the terms outlined by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington, as it has the power to summon Ministers and other persons and to call for papers.
  Mr. Crispin Blunt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) described it, the choice of who will chair the inquiry and its terms of reference sound like a script of "Yes, Minister"?
  Sir Peter Emery: I was about to say that—my hon. Friend takes my better lines.
  The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington mentioned the terms of reference, which include:
  "what was known by Government officials … and Ministers about plans to supply arms … whether any official encouragement or approval was given to such plans or to such supply; and … if so, on what authority".
  They do not include the factor that is of major relevance—whether the actions of Ministers or officials could be interpreted as wishing to give encouragement to Sandline to remove the rebel Government. That is the factor that needs inquiry.
  On Thursday, I asked Sir John Kerr whether Mr. John Everett, Mr. Craig Murray, Mrs. Linda St. Cook, Mr. Tim Andrews and Mr. Philip Parham had had some contact with Sandline—he said that they had. I then suggested that, given the efficiency of the Foreign Office, notes and memoranda would have been made. Sir John agreed immediately. When I told him that the Foreign Affairs Committee wanted to see those notes and memoranda, he—if I may be somewhat unkind—hoo-ed and hah-ed a little before suggesting that that could not happen because of the Customs and Excise inquiry.
  Now that the customs inquiry is out of the way, the Committee should have the papers immediately, as they will prove whether what the Government are suggesting can be substantiated. If, as the Prime Minister says, the Government want to be open and to hide nothing, why are not the telegrams about aspects of Sierra Leone and the west coast of Africa to the Foreign Office available for scrutiny, as the Committee demanded more than 10 days ago? It has been said that they are not for general

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  circulation, but there is a precedent—members of the Committee have been asked to examine the telegrams in the Foreign Office. We must ensure that that is done.
  If there is nothing to hide, why the restriction? As soon as there is restriction, people immediately suspect that there is something to hide. If the Government are so determined to clear their name, let us have the political facts out in the open—the matter is no longer ultra vires, as there is no prosecution.
  I find it amazing that the Foreign Office should refer to the restrictive enforcement unit—of whose existence Sir John said that he did not know—on 18 February, as we were led to believe that nothing had happened until the Foreign Office sent the letter on 10 March. That is also of considerable importance and illustrative of the way in which Ministers are trying to sidestep the issue.
  Earlier, I asked the Foreign Secretary how many references relating to arms and a United Nations resolution had been made to Customs and Excise. Undoubtedly, many references were made on a host of different subjects, but who can really believe that a reference on arms, on the breach of a United Nations resolution, is not important enough to be referred by civil servants to a Minister? Moreover, who can really believe, in all honesty, that civil servants would not do so for two and a half months? I cannot believe it, so I think that there is something that we must get to the bottom of.
  There are only two alternatives. Either the matters were referred to Ministers and Ministers either did not see them or did not want to see them, so Ministers must be held to account; or the Foreign Office did not send them to Ministers—we must ask, why not?—in which case the Foreign Office is at fault. It must be one or the other, and in either case the buck stops with the Foreign Secretary. Whether or not the Foreign Office was wrong, he must be held responsible; and I believe that the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House has the power and the right to carry out an inquiry, so that we may get to the bottom of this.
  6.11 pm
  Mr. Hugh Bayley: The right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) is the first Conservative Member unequivocally to welcome the fact that Major Koroma's regime was toppled by the action earlier this year. Conservative Members, including those on the Front Bench, have displayed a certain naivety by concentrating on the minutiae—the little issues of administration at the Foreign Office—to the exclusion of issues of policy.
  No one in any part of the House disputes the fact that the election of President Kabbah in 1996 gave us, for the first time for a very long time, a democratically elected Government in Sierra Leone. If development is to take place in Sierra Leone—which my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was talking about—a precondition is that there should be the rule of law under a democratically elected Government. When President Kabbah was overthrown, that went out of the window. He was replaced by a regime that brought down upon itself worldwide condemnation.
  The Amnesty International report published in October 1997 recorded that the rule of law simply did not exist in Sierra Leone. It drew attention to widespread abuse and
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  violation of human rights, to arbitrary arrest, torture, rape and looting, and to reports of extra-judicial executions. All parts of civil society in Sierra Leone were opposed to that regime and to the coup.
  Mr. Blunt: The hon. Gentleman is giving a graphic account of the appalling situation in Sierra Leone, yet our Government were complicit in enabling that regime to stay in power, by their drafting of the United Nations Security Council resolution, and by the fact that they were prepared to ensure that the only institution that could overthrow that regime—ECOMOG—was not allowed, under the terms of the Order in Council, to receive arms and assistance from this country. The Government were adopting a policy of Pontius Pilate, washing their hands of the Sierra Leoneans, who were dying in their droves. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will note that what we did was to give them money, and give them a radio broadcast so that President Kabbah could invite them to rise in revolt. We did not have the necessary will to support them in that task.
  Mr. Bayley: I have seldom heard such arrant nonsense. The hon. Gentleman should read the UN Security Council resolution again, very carefully. It does not, as he suggests, rule out any role for ECOMOG. That role is included. The resolution also says that, every 30 days, ECOWAS must report to the committee supervising the sanctions on what is happening. In my opinion, the Security Council resolution, read in conjunction with the three statements made last year by the Security Council, does not make it clear that sanctions were broken by any British party. That is something for the inquiry to establish, but unlike many hon. Members, I do not take it as read that that is cut and dried.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bayley: No; I must make progress.
  I draw the attention of hon. Members on both sides of the House to the fact that the statement issued by the Security Council in February, after the regime was overthrown, said that it welcomed
  "the fact that the rule of the military junta has been brought to an end"
  and encouraged
  "the Military Observer Group of ECOWAS (ECOMOG) to proceed in its efforts to foster peace and stability in Sierra Leone."
  If, as Conservative Members are suggesting, the UN Security Council resolution did not consider that there could be any circumstances in which military action could take place, the Security Council would not have made that statement.
  Mr. Gapes: Can my hon. Friend confirm that the United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in October 1997 specifically expresses strong support for the efforts of ECOWAS, and that ECOWAS is the regional organisation whose military arm is ECOMOG? Therefore,

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  the UN Security Council was supporting the actions of ECOWAS and its forces to restore democratic government in Sierra Leone.
  Mr. Bayley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is what the Security Council resolution says, and what Conservative Members are seeking to ignore.
  Mr. Andrew Robathan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
  Mr. Bayley: No. I am afraid that, because of shortage of time, I cannot give way.
  Conservative Members also seek to ignore the fact that paragraph 7 of the resolution makes it clear that it applies differently to the two Governments—to the democratically elected Government in exile and to the then illegal Government of Johnny Koroma within the country. The Security Council welcomed the overthrow of the Koroma regime because it was the policy of the Security Council that the democratically elected Government should be reinstated, and it was seen from the start that ECOWAS and its military arm, ECOMOG, would have a crucial role in ensuring that that took place.
  Mr. Blunt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bayley: No; I will not give way to the hon. Member a second time.
  Of course hon. Members would be happier if the overthrow of Koroma's regime had been achieved by peaceful means. The Conakry agreement required Koroma to pass over power to the constitutional Government; it would have been much better if he had decided to do so, but he did not, and it was obvious that a peaceful surrender of power was not going to happen.
  Like other hon. Members, I am uneasy about the involvement of the Nigerian regime in military action in west Africa, but in practice, if there was to be a military component in the solution, it had to involve either Nigeria or South Africa—and the latter made it clear that it could not participate. Paragraph 7 of the UN resolution makes specific provision for proposals for military action to be considered, because it gives power to ECOMOG to seek exemption from the terms of the Security Council resolution—
  Mr. Robathan rose—
  Mr. Bayley: I have already told the hon. Gentleman that I do not have time to give way.
  It is quite clear that no exemption was sought before the military action, but had it been sought, ECOMOG would simply have been announcing its intention to take action. It is naive of Conservative Members to pretend that justice could have been done and that the constitutionally elected Government could have been restored had we simply resorted to talks. Action was necessary, and when military action is taken in west Africa, Marquess of Queensberry rules just do not apply.
  6.20 pm
  Mr. David Faber: This has been a good debate. I warmly congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on their speeches; I also congratulate the hon. and
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  learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) and the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). In a splendid speech, the latter delivered a devastating indictment of Labour Ministers.
  It will not have escaped the notice of the wider world that at no time in the past two weeks have Ministers come voluntarily, at their own instigation, to the House to offer an explanation for this extraordinary affair. They have been summoned by the private notice questions tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) and by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Today, once again, it has been left to the Opposition to try to elicit answers to important questions.
  The ministerial code of conduct, complete with its stirring foreword by the Prime Minister, tells us that Ministers
  "have a duty to Parliament to account, and to be held to account for, the policies, decisions and actions of their Departments … It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity".
  Mr. Blunt: In the debate on Sierra Leone on 12 March, the Minister of State spoke of an article in The Observer, which referred to
  "Britain's talks with hired killers, and about the Foreign Office admitting our ambassador's link to notorious mercenaries".
  The Minister said:
  "The suggestion that Britain was conspiring with hired killers is wrong, and I wish to make that clear on behalf of the Government."—[Official Report, 12 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 844.]
  On 23 December, President Kabbah had been in direct contact with Sandline on the telephone in the morning; on the same day, our high commissioner had lunch with officers of Sandline; and a contract was concluded between President Kabbah and Sandline by fax that afternoon. That suggests that the Minister inadvertently misled the House.
  Who is kidding whom? Was the high commissioner kidding the Minister of State, or was the Minister of State kidding the House?
  Mr. Faber: I am not in possession of the facts about that meeting, but it clearly predates any dates about which we have already been told. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that at the end of this debate.
  The code of conduct for Ministers goes on:
  "Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest".
  The truth is that, when it comes to the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of State, information has to be prised out of them in a process more reminiscent of drawing teeth than of open government. They have consistently failed to reach the standards expected of them, and have at best bent and at worst broken the ministerial code.
  Evidence given to the Select Committee on two occasions has had to be retracted or corrected. Collective amnesia seems to have gripped the corridors of the Foreign Office; the Foreign Secretary's speech today yet again utterly failed to clear up many of the unanswered questions posed by my right hon. and hon. Friends. We welcome the setting up of the inquiry, but our admiration of Sir Thomas Legg as a distinguished civil servant

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  notwithstanding, I echo the concerns expressed to the effect that someone should have been picked from outside the civil service, preferably a learned judge. We condemn the fact that, for reasons that the Foreign Secretary did not adequately lay out, the inquiry is not to sit in public, and its terms of reference are wholly inadequate—as the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington pointed out.
  It is right that the inquiry should embrace the Ministry of Defence, but should it not also include the Department for International Development, since aid would have been delivered with the assistance of Sandline? As the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington rightly said, the inquiry should consider whether arms were supplied in breach of the UN resolution and the Order in Council.
  It is perhaps worth quoting the statement issued by Customs and Excise this very afternoon. It is extraordinary that the Foreign Secretary did not choose to read it into the record this afternoon, and that it has not been supplied to the House. It says:
  "Even though offences may still have been committed, the particular circumstances leading up to the supply affect the fairness of the case to the extent that any prosecution could well fail and would certainly not be in the public interest."
  That is both a staggering admission and a damning indictment of the Foreign Office. The absence of a prosecution, therefore, does not imply that there was no breach of the embargo; and it is ludicrous that the inquiry should not look into any such possible breach. As the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said, the terms of reference have been well and truly fixed.
  The Foreign Secretary told us that only one meeting had taken place at the FCO between officials and representatives of Sandline but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley) pointed out, Sir John Kerr in his evidence described numerous telephone calls—and almost certainly meetings in Conakry—which had also taken place.
  When the Minister winds up the debate, will he at last give us detailed answers to two specific questions? First, what is the definitive policy of the Government towards Sierra Leone, in particular to the implementation of Security Council resolution 1132?
  I want to make one thing abundantly clear: we unreservedly welcome the ousting of the military regime in Sierra Leone and the restoration of President Kabbah's legitimate Government. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe made the very same point in his opening speech. We recognise, as do hon. Members on both sides, the appalling atrocities that took place and continue to take place in the name of the military junta. We condemn them absolutely, and the Prime Minister's pathetic attempt to pretend otherwise at questions last week, supported by some today, did him no credit and serves only to underline the increasingly patronising and ill-informed manner in which he deals with any question to which he does not know the answer. To the Prime Minister, a counter-coup in west Africa, and a possibly serious breach of a UN arms embargo, are nothing more than overblown hoo-hah and hype in the media.
  Both my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe and the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife have referred to the detrimental effect
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  which the Prime Minister's extraordinary intervention may have had on the Customs and Excise investigation. The statement from this afternoon serves only to underline that point. We have heard today from the Foreign Secretary and the Attorney-General that Customs and Excise has completed its investigation and that prosecutions are not to follow, so will the Minister answer the question posed to the Attorney-General in the Chamber earlier today by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell): was the decision taken on evidential or on public interest grounds?
  The Prime Minister told us yesterday that the Foreign Secretary's actions had led to the restoration of President Kabbah, yet this is the same Foreign Secretary who claims to have no knowledge of events in Sierra Leone and no responsibility for them. He is the same Foreign Secretary who told the House on 6 May that this was a matter of "proper concern" to the House. He expressed his deep concern, saying that no one should "underestimate its gravity", and he described the line taken by the Prime Minister—that the ends should justify the means—as "wildly out of touch" with reality.
  Moreover, on the same day—6 May—the Foreign Secretary asserted that there was no Government policy in favour of, or UN support for, military intervention to restore President Kabbah, whose regime was to be restored through diplomatic negotiations, not military intervention. In that increasingly infamous Adjournment debate on Sierra Leone of 12 March, the Minister of State confirmed that that was the policy at the time. He told the House:
  "Let me make it clear … that while we welcome the fact that the rule of the military junta had been brought to an end, we were unable whole-heartedly to endorse the ECOMOG action. We believe that any use of force should be based in international law"—[Official Report, 12 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 842.]
  Mr. Tony Lloyd: Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
  Mr. Faber: Yes, we agree—although clearly the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley) does not. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling pointed out, Baroness Symons emphasised that point in another place. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that, with the benefit of what he now claims to know, the ECOMOG action to reinstate President Kabbah was illegal and in breach of the UN resolution? Is that the Government's view?
  As the noble Lord Steel pointed out in a letter to The Times today—again, this was reinforced by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington—
  "the British order in council enforcing the embargo is a good deal more extensive and detailed in drafting than the UN resolution itself."
  The Government took a leading role in sponsoring and drafting resolution 1132. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe pointed out earlier, it was precisely because the Government did not support military action that 1132 was translated into an even more clearly worded and strengthened Order in Council.
  This evening, the Minister has the first opportunity since his ill-starred appearance before the Select Committee to put the record straight and to answer the questions already posed to him many times.

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  His performance before the Select Committee was explained away, not least by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), by his having been invited to speak on the subject not of Sierra Leone, but of human rights. I should have thought, incidentally, that human rights were of considerable concern in Sierra Leone.
  The Minister's performance was also explained away by the fact that it took place the day after a bank holiday weekend. Today is the day after an ordinary weekend but, given the Foreign Secretary's proud boast about his paperwork, perhaps it was optimistic of us to expect any new answers today.
  If the hon. Gentleman were so badly briefed for the Select Committee meeting on 5 May, why had his office felt able to issue a statement to The Sunday Times the day before, in response to an article in the newspaper,
  "denying that Ministers knew of any collaboration in the military operation by Foreign Office officials."
  Was that statement cleared with the Minister at the time and, if so, was it not suggested to him by his officials that it just possibly might be raised at the Select Committee two days later?
  In the debate on 12 March, the hon. Gentleman attacked The Observer for what he described as
  "an ill-informed and scurrilous article"
  which had, he went on,
  "talked about Britain's talks with hired killers, and about the Foreign Office admitting our ambassador's link to notorious mercenaries plotting against the Sierra Leone Government."
  It is worth considering the Minister of State's rebuttal of the two points that he himself had made. First, he cites the high commissioner, Mr. Penfold, as confirming that
  "on no occasion did he attend any meetings at which Sandline—the company mentioned—and President Kabbah were present together."—[Official Report, 12 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 844–45.]
  That was not the issue. The fact that Sandline, President Kabbah and Mr. Penfold were never together is irrelevant to the question whether Mr. Penfold recommended the firm's services to President Kabbah, whether he liaised with Sandline in the ways outlined in Sandline International's solicitors' letter, and whether he informed the Foreign Office of what he was doing.
  Sir John Kerr has since confirmed in his evidence to the Select Committee that Sandline had had meetings in the Foreign Office and had regularly telephoned officials. He also suggested that Mr. Penfold may well have had meetings with Sandline in Conakry.
  As early as February, the attention of the Foreign Office had been drawn by Lord Avebury to the role allegedly played by Sandline International in flying arms from Bulgaria to support President Kabbah in his efforts to regain control in Sierra Leone. The Foreign Secretary informed the House on 6 May that,
  "on 10 March, the Foreign Office formally advised Customs and Excise of the allegations, with the suggestion that it commence an investigation."
  However, Sir John Kerr informed the Select Committee last week that the investigation had been agreed at a meeting on 18 February.
  In the same debate of 6 May, the Foreign Secretary told the House that the Minister of State
  "received copies of papers on the customs investigation in early April, and they were shown to him for noting in mid-April."—[Official Report, 6 May 1998; Vol. 311, c. 721–22.]
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  Again, the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington has pointed out the fallacy in that argument. It contradicted the Minister of State's evidence that he was not told until 1 May, a statement that he has since revoked, but for which he has not yet apologised.
  By early April, the Customs and Excise investigation was well under way, with visits being paid by officials to the Sandline International offices and the private residences of Colonel Spicer. We are asked to believe that the first intimation that the Minister of State received of the alleged breach of a United Nations arms embargo by a British company was at least three weeks, and possibly more, after the investigation had begun, and that the Secretary of State was informed only on 28 April.
  It is essential that we are told what were the contents of the papers received by the Minister of State, and what other form of briefing he received. Was he told of arms being involved? Was the role of the high commissioner in Sierra Leone mentioned? Was he briefed that Sandline had had discussions with the several officials in the Africa department of the Foreign Office who are named in Sandline's letter?
  Why, in the words of the Foreign Secretary, was the Minister of State not fully informed of the allegations made by Sandline before Friday 1 May? Does he prefer to receive his briefings by instalments, or does that reflect yet again the appalling breakdown of communication that is becoming daily more evident between officials and Ministers at the Foreign Office?
  Many of us who are seeking to get to the heart of this vital matter felt that we might at last be getting somewhere when the permanent under-secretary, Sir John Kerr, gave his evidence to the Select Committee. He told the Committee that he believed that a briefing prepared for the Minister for the debate on 12 March did include reference to a letter sent two days earlier to Customs and Excise, formally asking it to investigate the allegations made about Sandline.
  Sadly, as the House knows, our optimism was premature. Some hours later, a letter from Sir John to the Committee was released in which he stated that he now recalled that the
  "briefing pack prepared for Mr. Lloyd's use in the debate on March 12… does not mention arms shipments; and, as I thought, it does not say that one such report had already been passed to the Customs and Excise."
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) rightly said, that briefing pack must be published now, together with the notes of the conversations between Foreign Office officials and representatives of Sandline International to which Sir John Kerr referred in his evidence, and with all relevant telegrams from Sierra Leone and Guinea during the period in question.
  May I ask the Minister, as did his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East, to throw a little more light on the role and the brief given to Mr. John Flynn, a distinguished former diplomat, appointed by the Foreign Secretary on 9 January as his special representative to Sierra Leone. He was described at the time as having
  "a wealth of experience in conflict resolution in Africa",

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  and the Foreign Secretary has said that he was
  "to co-ordinate international support for the restoration".—[Official Report, 12 May 1998; Vol. 312, c. 153.]
  of President Kabbah. What precisely was his role? How frequently did he visit Sierra Leone, and did he meet representatives of Sandline there or in London? Did he accompany the Minister to Freetown on 31 March? On how many occasions did he meet the Minister and the Foreign Secretary?
  During the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, the Minister intervened to answer the question that I asked him at Foreign Office questions last week. He said that he did not discuss Sandline at the meeting that he held with John Flynn at the Foreign Office on 19 March, or at the meeting that he held with non-governmental organisations on 1 April.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify for the House exactly what he is insinuating about Mr. Flynn?
  Mr. Faber: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. I am not insinuating anything. I am asking the Minister to give further details about the role that Mr. Flynn was asked to play. I am keen to know whether Mr. Flynn is still involved in implementing the Government's policy in Sierra Leone, or has he, too, become disenchanted with their performance? We read yesterday about his recent meeting with the Foreign Secretary, after which he is said to have complained privately that the Foreign Secretary had
  "seemed uninterested in the subject, apparently preoccupied by other matters".
  Mr. Robin Cook: The hon. Gentleman will not wish to mislead the House. I should inform him and the House that I have received a letter from Mr. Flynn in which he flatly denies making any such statement and reasserts my interest in Sandline and Sierra Leone. He is greatly distressed by the way in which remarks that he did not make have been attributed to him.
  Mr. Faber: I would not wish to add to the distress of Mr. John Flynn. The Foreign Secretary has answered the question.
  Does the Minister expect us to believe that he was briefed for a debate on 12 March, but that he was not told of Sandline's activities, or of the Customs and Excise investigation begun, according to Sir John Kerr, on 18 February? Did the Minister hold meetings or conversations with Mr. Penfold or Mr. Flynn, and yet was told nothing of Sandline International? We are led to believe that the word "Sandline" never occurred in any conversations that he had with Mr. Penfold or Mr. Flynn.
  Did the Minister visit Freetown himself on 31 March, without the word "Sandline" or reference to its operations there passing the lips of anyone whom he met? Did he hold a meeting with NGOs on 1 April to discuss the position in Sierra Leone, and in particular the delivery of aid, yet during the meeting not one of them mentioned the role played by Sandline?
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  What has the Minister been doing for the past few months, if not one person, from his own officials to those on the ground in Sierra Leone, felt moved to inform him about the activities of a British company helping militarily to restore President Kabbah to power? It is time for the Minister to tell us when he first knew of the allegations and from whom. Last Thursday he told the House:
  "my statement in the House on 12 March was an exact statement of my knowledge at the time. If, given the events of time, I need to correct that, I shall of course seek to do so before the House."—[Official Report, 14 May 1998; Vol. 312, c. 537.]
  Tonight is his opportunity.
  In a debate in the House on 2 April on the international arms trade, the Minister described my speech, which had criticised the Government's so-called ethical foreign policy, as "sad" and "churlish". It is not my behaviour in this sorry saga that we are debating tonight that I consider to be sad. The hon. Gentleman went on—as Ministers always do—to blame the previous Government, and said that I should have stood up and said that we were genuinely sorry. Tonight, the House will want to know whether the Minister is a big enough man to stand up and say that he is sorry.
  6.39 pm
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tony Lloyd): I am delighted to speak about Sierra Leone before such a packed House. The House of Commons tonight, with full Opposition Benches, contrasts markedly with the House during the debate on 12 March. My speech on that occasion has attracted the interest of both the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), and his junior spokesman, the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber). However, neither of them took the trouble to attend that debate—although a solitary Conservative Back Bencher spoke in it. That was the level of Opposition interest in the events in Sierra Leone. We have had to wait from the restoration of President Kabbah until now to hear the Opposition even welcome the President's return to power in that country.
  Let me say at the outset that the Government's policy with respect to Sierra Leone has been a success, and it has been a success for an ethical foreign policy. I shall tell the House a little about the events that took place.
  Mr. Robathan: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Lloyd: No, the hon. Gentleman has already made several interventions.
  From the time of the coup, the Government recognised and supported the legitimate elected Government of President Kabbah, even while he was in exile. We regarded as illegitimate the junta that had taken his place. We wanted democratic Government to be restored and we were delighted when it was. However, we wanted it done legally—that is an important point as many Opposition Members, particularly the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley), have fudged such issues. We wanted it to happen in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions as that is the correct way for such things to occur.
  We contemplated the threat or use of force, but only as a last resort. When we were asked about it—only one Conservative Member asked a question about Sierra

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  Leone from the time of the coup last July until recently—we said that we preferred to see negotiations, which would avoid bloodshed and harm to the people of Sierra Leone. We made it clear that the possibility of force was available as a last resort, but only with the blessing of the United Nations. That is the right and proper way for the Government to behave, and we do not resile from that approach.
  We did not want arms to flow into the region—that goes to resolution 1132, which the hon. Member for Westbury does not seem to have read—even if they were meant for the good people, as they could easily have ended up in the wrong hands. We made it clear over and over again that we would not support any illegal action. President Kabbah got the message. In his letter to the Prime Minister of 11 May, he said:
  "I recall, during the Commonwealth meeting in Edinburgh, Mr. Tony Lloyd remarking that while the British Government would continue to give diplomatic and other support to my Government, it could not provide it with lethal materials or weapons. As far as I was concerned, the matter was closed."
  Several interesting points have emerged during the debate, and one of them concerns the role of the Opposition. I am not even sure whether the shadow Foreign Secretary knows who got rid of the junta in Sierra Leone. I can inform him that ECOMOG, not Sandline, got rid of that regime. The shadow Foreign Secretary and his hon. Friends do not seem to realise that. ECOMOG conducted a significant military operation and forced the junta to take flight. President Kabbah's letter to the Prime Minister said:
  "As I review the media reports in London, it struck me that Sandline's role in the removal of the illegal regime and the return of my Government has been exaggerated."
  That is an understatement. He goes on to say that the weapons arrived only after the removal of the illegal regime—that is an important point—and the liberation of Freetown by ECOMOG. President Kabbah said:
  "I assure you most emphatically that at no time did my Government utilise mercenaries provided by Sandline."
  He continued:
  "It is erroneous for anyone to suggest that Sandline was involved in a coup … on my behalf."
  Sandline did not restore President Kabbah's Government.
  Mr. Blunt: At this point, the Minister should know that the issue of arms is neither here nor there. Crucial to the military success of the ECOMOG operation was the military assistance and advice given by Sandline to President Kabbah, with the knowledge of the High Commissioner. That package included arms, and President Kabbah signed the end user certificate knowing that they came from a British company.
  Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that there is nothing in the Security Council resolution or in Britain's national legislation—the Order in Council—that could control advice provided to President Kabbah. Is the hon. Gentleman serious in raising that point? We have said continually that there was no ministerial approval of any breach of the United Nations arms embargo. I reiterate that Sandline did not restore President Kabbah's Government: that was achieved by forces, chiefly Nigerian, contributed by ECOMOG. It was a trained and
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  well-equipped army, and, frankly, a few mercenaries with a handful of arms shipped via Bulgaria could not do the job.
  Dr. Tonge: I thank the Minister for giving way. Will he tell the House whether he and his Government are entirely happy about the involvement of the Nigerian Government in restoring power to President Kabbah? Many people in Sierra Leone are particularly worried about that and about the influence that Nigeria will have over them in the future.
  Mr. Lloyd: I shall come to that point in a moment. The British Government—this is germane to the hon. Lady's question—did not fully endorse the ECOMOG action, because there was no Security Council resolution mandating that invasion.
  Mr. Howard rose—
  Mr. Lloyd: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me to finish my point, I shall certainly give way.
  On 12 March, I told the House:
  "while we welcome the fact that the rule of the military junta has been brought to an end, we were unable wholeheartedly to endorse the ECOMOG action. We believe that any use of force should be based in international law."—[Official Report, 12 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 842.]
  I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will endorse that view.
  Mr. Howard: Certainly. If the hon. Gentleman takes the view—as he has done consistently—that the ECOMOG action that restored President Kabbah was contrary to international law, how can he conceivably justify his claim at the outset of his speech that the return of President Kabbah was a great success for British foreign policy?
  Mr. Lloyd: Self-evidently, the return of President Kabbah is welcome, and Britain did several things to assist it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman does not seem to be aware that, while we regret that the military observer group of the Organisation of West African States—ECOWAS—did not await a United Nations mandate before intervening, Britain worked very hard to ensure that it knew that we would support such a resolution if proper rules of engagement and a proper military plan were presented to the United Nations to give it legal legitimacy. That is the action of a responsible Government.
  Since then, we have contributed to ECOWAS. We have offered logistical support, and we have contributed £2 million to the United Nations trust fund for ECOMOG, which is targeted at issues such as disarmament and demobilisation. However, we did not fully endorse the actions of the Nigerian army that did the job. Therefore, it is ludicrous to suggest that we would endorse the actions of mercenaries who made no difference in that situation.
  Mr. Garnier: In light of the Minister's remarks in the past five or 10 minutes, does he agree that the Prime Minister's intervention and his description of this affair as "hoo-hah" were deeply unwise?
  Mr. Lloyd: The Prime Minister always made quite clear the parameters of events. He made it clear that we

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  strongly welcome the restoration of President Kabbah—and the Opposition concur with that view. The Prime Minister said that the restoration of the legitimate Government in Sierra Leone was possible only through legal action, and he has never said anything other than that. He is consistent in that view.
  Equally, the Prime Minister has not endorsed any action—he made this very clear, and the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) should know that—that is in breach of the United Nations arms embargo, which would be deplorable. However, the Prime Minister did say that the Opposition's attempts to use the incident for domestic political purposes were the kind of hoo-hah that we all deplore. [Interruption.] At the end of the day, the shadow Foreign Secretary knows that.
  That is why, between May last year and May this year, Opposition Members asked not one question about Sierra Leone. They made not one observation about Sierra Leone, and they made no attempt to raise issues regarding human rights abuses in that country—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I will not allow any shouting in the Chamber. The House must come to order.
  Mr. Lloyd: Opposition Members may shout all they want, but the simple reality is that the shadow Foreign Secretary and his junior spokesman showed not one scrap of interest in Sierra Leone during those long months.
  I shall tell the House what has happened in Sierra Leone. This is important. I shall try to do this dispassionately. When I went to Sierra Leone I was shown pictures of the atrocities committed by the Revolutionary United Front. I was shown a picture of a decapitated body. The head had been placed between the legs as a warning to others. That is an example of the atrocities that took place regularly. At no point during 12 months did one question come to the Foreign Office from the shadow Foreign Secretary. Why not?
  Mr. Faber rose—
  Mr. Lloyd: It seems that the junior Opposition spokesman will explain why. Please do.
  Mr. Faber: I made this clear in my speech. We deplore the atrocities that took place. I referred to the Prime Minister's intervention on this matter as pathetic, and pathetic it was. As the Minister took such a close interest in matters in Sierra Leone, will he tell us when he first knew, and from whom?
  Mr. Lloyd: It is astonishing that the hon. Gentleman is prepared to rise to speak about his own actions. For 12 months, the hon. Gentleman with Opposition responsibility for Africa seemed oblivious to the fact that the coup had taken place in Sierra Leone. He raised not one question or protest during that period. Not once did he display interest in what had happened in Sierra Leone.
  Dr. Tonge: I thank the Minister for giving way again. I well remember when he told the House of the atrocities
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  in Sierra Leone, because that was during the debate on arms contracts and arms sales. The official Opposition did not attend that debate.
  I noticed from the Foreign Office press releases that on the day when you were speaking about those atrocities in Sierra Leone, and horrifying the House with your descriptions, you had that morning met President Kabbah of Sierra Leone. I wonder whether you had heard anything about this matter—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have not met President Kabbah.
  Mr. Lloyd: I am not sure about the matter of Sandline, to which the hon. Lady has referred, and President Kabbah. President Kabbah and I never discussed Sandline during the various meetings that I have had with him.
  I shall tell the House what the Government did do. Most certainly, Britain was responsible consistently for actions at the United Nations. Britain was responsible for making sure that President Kabbah was invited to Edinburgh for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, uniquely for a president in exile. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister appointed John Flynn, and his role is perfectly straightforward. He has not been appointed to conspire on behalf of Sandline. He is to work for the Government in terms of our policy.
  The hon. Member for Westbury should be careful about the level of innuendo—[Interruption.] John Flynn is a respected former diplomat and should be given that recognition.
  Britain sent in HMS Cornwall after the coup had been thrown out, as it were, in Freetown. The ship took part in humanitarian activity. HMS Cornwall took no part in military action against the coup plotters or even in favour of President Kabbah. The House should be more proud of the Royal Navy's role and a little ashamed of the insinuations that it has behaved somehow dishonourably. I hope that the shadow Foreign Secretary will be very careful.
  Sir Peter Emery rose—
  Mr. Lloyd: No, I shall not give way. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to forgive me.
  Since then I have visited Sierra Leone, along with the Commonwealth ministerial action group. I met once again with President Kabbah. I met nobody in Sierra Leone from Sandline. I have met nobody from Sandline, and will meet nobody from Sandline. I think that my record on that score stands complete.
  Since the coup Britain has been working hard at the United Nations to ensure that there is a peacekeeping role for ECOMOG—to make sure that there are military observers to take part in the process of demilitarisation and demobilisation.
  I shall make a political point about what happened hitherto in Sierra Leone. The coup took place because the Conservative Government did not make an effort to ensure that democracy was solid in Sierra Leone. That is why the coup took place. We shall not make that mistake again. That is why we are continually engaged—that is why £2 million has gone into the United Nations trust fund.
  Mr. Howard: As a matter of fact, it was the previous Government who paid for the elections as a result of which President Kabbah came to power.

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  The Minister of State has seven minutes left to answer the many specific questions that have been put to him during the debate, not least by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). Will he now answer the questions that have been put to him and account to the House for his conduct in this matter?
  Mr. Lloyd: My account to the House is very clear. I made a clear statement last Thursday and I shall be judged by that. I shall come on to that in a few minutes. Before doing so, I shall quote once again from President Kabbah in his letter to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. He wrote:
  "I hasten to add that the people of Sierra Leone will be for ever grateful to your Government and the British people for the timely assistance, encouragement and support you gave us in our hour of need."
  Those are not the words of someone who thought that Britain had not done enough. They were the words of a man who thought that Britain had played a noble role in the restoration of democracy in Sierra Leone. It is a role that I am proud to have had a part in, and that is the position of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.
  Sir Peter Emery rose—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must come to order. The House must be quiet.
  Sir Peter Emery: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that Conservative Members are terribly interested in listening. However, it is clear that Sandline has made many allegations. It wanted to exaggerate its military role and its contacts with officials. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has already said, we should be careful in not repeating allegations made by Sandline to those who cannot defend themselves in this place. However, that does not mean for one second that we would condone any breach of the United Nations' ban or sanction. Any such allegation is treated with the utmost gravity. That is why the allegation was referred to Customs and Excise.
  I cannot go beyond the statement of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General except to say that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has not seen the report of the officers of Customs and Excise. My right hon. Friend was not a party to the decision made by the commissioners. I cannot add to the statement that they have made today. However, I can assure the House that, if the conduct of anyone in the Foreign Office has been a factor in the commissioners' decision, that will be fully investigated and revealed by the investigation that my right hon. Friend has already announced. That is an important assurance to the House. Hon Members should give the House the courtesy of accepting that the inquiry should go ahead on the basis outlined, so that it can get to the bottom of these matters.
  Clearly, the inquiry must go to the truth and it will get to the truth. It is worth the House recognising something that the Opposition are reluctant to accept, in that it was Foreign Office officials, whom the Opposition scorn, who warned Sandline, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said, that the United Nations arms embargo was in force. Once Foreign Office officials were told that it was alleged that the arms embargo had been breached, they referred the matter to Customs and Excise.
  654
  The right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) said in the House last week that it was astonishing that the matter had not been referred to me before being put to Customs and Excise. The right hon. Gentleman is not only wrong but outrageous. It would be ridiculous for Ministers to be asked to comment on the reference of potential criminal activities. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take this opportunity to retract.
  Sir Peter Emery: In a slightly calmer vein, and in an effort to defend Foreign Office officials who the Minister says cannot defend themselves, will the Minister give the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, as it has requested, the memos of the meetings of officials that are in the hands of the Foreign Office along with the notes made and the telegrams that have been received? Those documents will speak louder than any of the Minister's words, and we shall then know the truth.
  Mr. Lloyd: These are clearly matters for the inquiry. It is a shame that the right hon. Gentleman did not retract his ridiculous statement of last week.
  I have many meetings with many people. The one common thread joining non-governmental organisations, President Kabbah and many other people is that the subject that did not come up was Sandline. Sandline was a sideline.
  The House is being gripped by Sandline fever. The shadow Foreign Secretary has been determined to try to make his name on it. We understand why. In the absence of any foreign policy, it is necessary to grasp at whatever comes to hand.
  The hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) asked whether the inquiry would cover the Nixonian formula: what Ministers knew and what they should have known. Let me make it clear to the hon. and learned Gentleman that I shall welcome appearing before an inquiry, and shall welcome precisely that line of questioning. It is important for the confidence of this House in my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, and in me, that such questions are asked. I shall co-operate fully with the inquiry and ensure that those questions are answered.
  Many questions have been put to me. I congratulate the shadow Foreign Secretary on the award that he won last week from the Royal Television Society for his interview with Jeremy Paxman, when he refused 14 times to answer a question about whether he had overruled Derek Lewis.
  The Government have nothing to hide and will hide nothing. We shall get to the bottom of all this. Contrast that with the sleazy actions of the previous Government, of whom the shadow Foreign Secretary was part. They covered up arms to Iraq—a real scandal—and still do not apologise.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 128, Noes 287.

  Division No. 277]

  [7 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Baldry, Tony

  Amess, David

  Bercow, John

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Arbuthnot, James

  Blunt, Crispin

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Body, Sir Richard

  655

  Boswell, Tim

  Letwin, Oliver

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Brady, Graham

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Brazier, Julian

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Loughton, Tim

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Luff, Peter

  Bums, Simon

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Butterfill, John

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Chope, Christopher

  MacKay, Andrew

  Clappison, James

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Madel, Sir David

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Maples, John

  Collins, Tim

  Mates, Michael

  Cran, James

  Maude, Rt Hon Francis

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Day, Stephen

  Ottaway, Richard

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Page, Richard

  Duncan Smith, lain

  Pace, James

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Paterson, Owen

  Evans, Nigel

  Prior, David

  Faber, David

  Randall, John

  Fabricant, Michael

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Flight, Howard

  Robathan, Andrew

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxboume)

  Fraser, Christopher

  Ruffley, David

  Gale, Roger

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Garnier, Edward

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Gibb, Nick

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Shepherd, Richard

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Sir Alastair

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Soames, Nicholas

  Gray, James

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Green, Damian

  Spring, Richard

  Greenway, John

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Grieve, Dominic

  Steen, Anthony

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Streeter, Gary

  Hammond, Philip

  Swayne, Desmond

  Hawkins, Nick

  Syms, Robert

  Hayes, John

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Heald, Oliver

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Tredinnick, David

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Horam, John

  Walter, Robert

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Wardle, Charles

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Waterson, Nigel

  Hunter, Andrew

  Wells, Bowen

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Wilkinson, John

  Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Key, Robert

  Woodward, Shaun

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Lansley, Andrew

  Mr. John M. Taylor and

  Leigh, Edward

  Mr. John Whittingdale.

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Bayley, Hugh

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Beard, Nigel

  Alexander, Douglas

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Allen, Graham

  Benton, Joe

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Berry, Roger

  Armstrong, Ms Hilary

  Betts, Clive

  Ashton, Joe

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Blizzard, Bob

  Austin, John

  Blunkett, Rt Hon David

  Banks, Tony

  Boateng, Paul

  Barnes, Harry

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Battle, John

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  656

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

  Grant, Bernie

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Browne, Desmond

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Grocott, Bruce

  Burden, Richard

  Grogan, John

  Burgon, Colin

  Hain, Peter

  Byers, Stephen

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Caborn, Richard

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Hanson, David

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Healey, John

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Hepbum, Stephen

  Cann, Jamie

  Heppell, John

  Caplin, Ivor

  Hesford, Stephen

  Caton, Martin

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Cawsey, Ian

  Hill, Keith

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Chaytor, David

  Hodge, Ms Margaret

  Clapham, Michael

  Home Robertson, John

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Hope, Phil

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Clelland, David

  Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

  Clwyd, Ann

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Coaker, Vemon

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Hughes, Ms Beveriey (Stretford)

  Cohen, Harry

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Colman, Tony

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Connarty, Michael

  Hutton, John

  Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Cooper, Yvette

  Illsley, Eric

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

  Corston, Ms Jean

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cranston, Ross

  Jenkins, Brian

  Crausby, David

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Cryer, John (Homchurch)

  Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

  Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Darvill, Keith

  Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Jowell, Ms Tessa

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Dawson, Hilton

  Kemp, Fraser

  Dismore, Andrew

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Dobbin, Jim

  Khabra, Piara S

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  Kidney, David

  Doran, Frank

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Dowd, Jim

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Drew, David

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Kingham, Ms Tess

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Edwards, Huw

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Efford, Clive

  Lawrence, Ms Jackie

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Lepper, David

  Fatchett, Derek

  Leslie, Christopher

  Fisher, Mark

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Linton, Martin

  Flint, Caroline

  Livingstone, Ken

  Follett, Barbara

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Lock, David

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Love, Andrew

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  McAllion, John

  Fyfe, Maria

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Galloway, George

  McCabe, Steve

  Gapes, Mike

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Gardiner, Barry

  McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Gerrard, Neil

  McDonnell, John

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

  Godsiff, Roger

  McNulty, Tony

  Goggins, Paul

  MacShane, Denis

  657

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Primarolo, Dawn

  McWilliam, John

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Purchase, Ken

  Mallaber, Judy

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Radice, Giles

  Martlew, Eric

  Rammell, Bill

  Maxton, John

  Rapson, Syd

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

  Meale, Alan

  Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N)

  Merron, Gillian

  Robertson, Rt Hon George (Hamilton S)

  Michael, Alun

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Milbum, Alan

  Rogers, Allan

  Miller, Andrew

  Rooker, Jeff

  Mitchell, Austin

  Rooney, Terry

  Moffatt, Laura

  Roy, Frank

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Ruddock, Ms Joan

  Moran, Ms Margaret

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

  Ryan, Ms Joan

  Morley, Elliot

  Salter, Martin

  Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Mudie, George

  Sawford, Phil

  Mullin, Chris

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Norris, Dan

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Singh, Marsha

  O'Neill, Martin

  Skinner, Dennis

  Osbome, Ms Sandra

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Perham, Ms Linda

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Pike, Peter L

  Snape, Peter

  Plaskitt, James

  Soley, Clive

  Pollard, Kerry

  Spellar, John

  Pond, Chris

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Pope, Greg

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Pound, Stephen

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Powell, Sir Raymond

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  658

  Stott, Roger

  White, Brian

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Straw, Rt Hon Jack

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Wills, Michael

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  Winnick, David

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Tipping, Paddy

  Wise, Audrey

  Todd, Mark

  Wood, Mike

  Touhig, Don

  Woolas, Phil

  Trickett, Jon

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Wright, DrTony (Cannock)

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Vaz, Keith

  Mr. John McFall and

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Mr. Jon Owen Jones.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
  Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House notes the Government's consistent policy of support for the restoration of President Kabbah and recognition of him as the elected and legitimate President of Sierra Leone and welcomes the success of that policy and the overthrow of the brutal and repressive military regime; applauds the open and proper manner in which the Government have responded to allegations of a breach of the UN arms embargo; and congratulates the Government on its commitment to an urgent outside investigation and publication of a full report.

Territorial Army
7.14 pm
Sir George Young: I beg to move,
That this House views with concern recent reports that the size of the Territorial Army may be reduced to 40,000 and that it may be stripped of many of its combat units; recognises the role of the Territorial Army both in complementing the role of the regular army on active service in places such as Bosnia and in providing a strategic reserve of trained combat and supporting units in case of wider conflict; applauds the work of the Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Associations around the country in providing opportunities for young people to volunteer in the reserves and cadets, and in building bridges between local communities and the armed forces; and urges the Government to use the Strategic Defence Review to develop rather than undermine the role of this important national resource.
Over the past 10 years, most Opposition days have been used to castigate Governments for mistakes that they have been perceived to have made. We have a different objective: to persuade the Government to avoid a mistake that we fear that they are about to make. The motion that we have tabled on the Territorial Army is as non-partisan as they come. It embraces views that have been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, at both ends of the building and by informed opinion outside Parliament about the feared impact of the strategic defence review on the size and the role of the TA.
I am slightly surprised that the Government are seeking to amend our motion, and no doubt we shall hear which of its propositions the Government have difficulty with, but the absence of invective on the Order Paper should not disguise the concern that has inspired the debate and, indeed, a recent spate of hyperactivity in the Ministry of Defence, doubtless in the hope of avoiding intervention by the Minister without Portfolio.
The cause of our concern is a series of reports by defence correspondents, especially Michael Evans of The Times, who seems to be well informed, that the TA will be cut to 40,000. I also understand that the SDR reserves paper, which was discussed in the MOD on 6 February, proposed that the size of the TA should be approximately 40,000. Perhaps the Secretary of State can confirm that. We know from Ministers that they plan to retain or to enhance the TA's specialist capabilities, so the only way that they could reach the figure that I have mentioned is by substantial reductions of about 80 per cent. in the infantry.
In response to that suggested reduction, we have had two lively debates in the House. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) for their diligence in initiating those debates and for their advocacy during them. However, nothing that Ministers have said in reply has allayed that concern.
There was also a much longer debate in the other place. There were no fewer than 33 Back-Bench speakers—many only recently retired from advising Ministers at the MOD—of whom only two took the Government brief. Commenting on the possible reasons for that, Lord Gilbert said:
"One is that my noble friends have total confidence in the way the Government are running the country".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 April 1998; Vol. 590, c. 1225.]
660
A less charitable commentator might be driven to the opposite conclusion.
I choose just one quotation from the many speakers in our three excellent debates. The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, whom I of course notified of my intention to quote him, said:
"The fact that there are so many Members here in the early afternoon is a warning to the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence that messing around with what is left of our reserves would be difficult and dangerous … Warfare has not changed so greatly as to render our traditional reserves superfluous; nor are they there only to plug holes left in the MOD's budget … If we find that the reserves have been relegated to superfluity, I am convinced that there will be tremendous reaction throughout the country, reflected in the House."—[Official Report, 8 April 1998; Vol. 310, c. 313.]
I believe that he is right, and if Ministers will not listen to me, they should listen to him. I am delighted that he is in his place for the debate.
The Opposition want to give further momentum to the concern to which I have referred. We hope not only to persuade the Government to change their proposals, but to bring to a swift conclusion the increasingly embarrassing delay in publishing the SDR, for which we still have no date. Ministers keep telling us how thorough, inclusive and transparent was the exercise that led to the report that they sent to their colleagues at the end of March. Despite that, however, their colleagues want between three and four months to validate that comprehensive exercise. As we have constantly been told that it is not Treasury-driven, we wonder who is holding it up.
In the meantime, there is an increasingly damaging impact on morale, on recruitment and on procurement. The Secretary of State is probably equally frustrated by the delay, but is too polite to say so. However, he owes it to the service for which he has responsibility to bring the exercise to a swift conclusion.
In speaking about the TA, it is no part of my case to look backwards rather than forwards or to set regular against reserve. There must be a good, forward-looking relationship between the two because they depend on each other. The Regular Army depends on the TA to complete battalions that are sent to Bosnia; the TA depends on the Regular Army for its marching orders, and they share a common culture and ethos. The future of the TA and the long-term health of the Regular Army are inextricably linked, and there is no advantage in reducing the TA infantry to insignificance, as the strategic defence review apparently suggests, while hoping to man an enhanced regular infantry.
The Minister for the Armed Forces has said that the reserves can make their case in public while the regulars cannot. That is a fair point, but, of course, the regulars are much closer to the decision-making process and have more senior officers within the Ministry of Defence. An advocacy that is private rather than public may be every bit as influential.
There are two key questions for the House. They are, first, what is to be the role of the TA over the next 15 to 20 years; and, secondly, can that role be filled with the manpower that the Government are examining? The role of the TA is as a general reserve to the Army. It is there to reinforce the Regular Army when that is required with individuals, units or sub-units in the UK or overseas. It also provides the framework and basis for regeneration and reconstitution in times of national emergencies.

661
The TA performs other roles. In many parts of the country, it is the only link between military and civil in our demilitarised society. It is an important source of recruits for the Army and is an alternative to conscription. It offers opportunities for volunteering to the responsible citizen; it assists other Government objectives and programmes, such as welfare to work; and it offers opportunities of a structured life to young people who might otherwise lack contact with order and discipline.
I shall outline the case that Government must answer. The manpower that the Government apparently propose will mean that the TA will lack the critical mass that it needs to remain a viable organisation. Cuts focused on the infantry will mean that its heart will become starved of oxygen and its limbs will become less efficient. Infantry reductions of about 80 per cent. mean that it will no longer be a truly national organisation. The shrinking will not only have the impacts that I have mentioned but will affect the perceived role of the TA in society, the employer's willingness to release employees for training for a valued purpose, and people's motivation to join.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: My right hon. Friend is dealing with the important roles of the TA. Does he agree that the TA is vital to the future of the Army cadet force because throughout the country, and certainly in my constituency in the Camberley area, cadets rely on the TA for stores and training and for many other services? To damage the TA is to damage the cadets.
Sir George Young: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I had intended to speak about that issue, but he has raised it more eloquently than I could.
I shall now deal with the TA's role as general reserve to the Army, and assume that at one end of the scale we plan for a high-intensity conflict for which we field one division. It is legitimate to contemplate such a conflict: we contemplated one in the House only a few weeks ago. If we assume 15 per cent. casualties in four days, on the TA figures that we are debating, the Army would have to call up ex-regulars on day five. The trouble with that is that 50 per cent. of the addresses of ex-regulars are incorrect. In addition, they may not be fit or trained on current equipment, and may not want to serve.
The strategy of cutting the TA and relying on ex-regulars to save money rejects the trained, fit and willing volunteer for the possibly unfit, unwilling and untrained ex-regular—if one can get hold of him. We could be into that scenario quite soon. Sustaining any operation requires depth, and if the reserves are cut, there will not be the depth to sustain an operation. In a lower-intensity conflict with fewer casualties, with inadequate reserves there would be a shortage of manpower after about 90 days. At the other end of the scale, there is the example of the recent floods in the midlands. The Army locally was on block leave and the territorials stepped in and were the only soldiers who were present.
Most regular units deploy with a TA increment on operations or on exercises. Some 10 per cent. of the implementation force, IFOR, and the stabilisation force, SFOR, manpower in Bosnia was found from reservists, of whom about 1,200 were infantry. Without such back filling, the regular infantry would be even more stretched, and that would lead to worse retention and an ever-increasing reduction in regular manpower.
662
The TA has gained much respect for its role in Bosnia. More broadly, while we have a small regular force, the volunteer reserve forces help to provide the capacity to punch above our weight, and that has enabled Britain to have an effective foreign policy. All that is at risk.
Reducing the TA has other consequences, such as those that were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins). TA premises are used by others such as cadets, who also use vehicles and equipment with TA infantry instructors. To get a clearer idea of the exact impact, I have today written to the regional chairmen of the Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Association to get their assessment of the consequences of what we are discussing.
The whole of the reserve forces cost about 3 per cent. of the entire defence budget. The TA is astonishing value for money; my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) will expand on that at the end of the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury made the point in his perceptive piece in today's issue of The Daily Telegraph. As one noble Lord put it, it is like saving money by ceasing to pay for the insurance policy.
The role of reconstitution as well as that of general reserve may be compromised by the strategic defence review. It is fine to say that we shall have time to do that because there will be adequate warning, but history tells us otherwise. It was not until the spring of 1939 that it was decided to double the size of the TA. That decision ensured that many units went to war partly trained and ill-equipped and the price was heavy. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) may recall how difficult it was in 1971 to train and recruit the new infantry battalions that he formed. It took five or six years to build up the expertise on which a unit relies.
The strategic defence review will take us up to 2015—17 years ahead. We only need to look back 17 years to 1981 to appreciate what we did not foresee at that time—the Falklands, Iraq and Bosnia, to name but three major demands on the armed forces. The record of forecasting military conflict is not good. There is a hint that there will be no need to call out complete units again. I am not sure that I agree with that. In replying to a recent debate and at defence questions today the Minister for the Armed Forces said that the Russians would not land tomorrow. That is correct, but who can predict the shape, location or duration of future conflicts? For expansion, the infrastructure and the framework must be in place, and it is precisely those which we are likely to lose.
We do not know exactly how forces may be required, and that means that we need a general rather than a specialised reserve. That is why cuts of 80 per cent. in the infantry would be so dangerous. Infantry is flexible; it can re-role. One company in Winchester has re-roled from infantrymen to amphibious engineers. The infantry has the key soldiering skills to an extent that specialists have not, and that makes it the heart of a genuine multi-purpose reserve.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I fully endorse my right hon. Friend's excellent case on behalf of the Territorial Army. Does he agree that, if the TA is cut to the extent that many of us think it will be, that will deprive ex-regulars, who have cost a great deal to train,

663
of the opportunity to become TA soldiers and officers, with the tremendous benefit that that can bring to the services and to younger recruits?
Sir George Young: My hon. Friend's point is well made, and I am grateful to him.
I shall now turn to the issue of recruitment. Currently, the Army is about 5,000 below strength and has a turnover of some 15,000 a year. Some 40 per cent. of Regular Army recruits come from the TA and the cadets, and they come disproportionately from the infantry. Cutting the infantry in the TA therefore runs the risk of double jeopardy. Not only does it cut off a promising source of recruitment for undermanned regulars, but it leaves the regulars even more exposed because the reserves are no longer there to support them. The reserves are being squeezed to make headroom for a sixth deployable brigade, but that is the wrong way to do it. The Army's top priority at the moment is recruitment and retention. My contact with the armed forces parliamentary scheme over recent weeks has brought that home to me, but cutting the TA makes that problem worse, not better.
I turn to the argument about footprint—the need to have a physical presence throughout the country that is seen, felt and respected, not least for recruitment. If the number comes down to 40,000, Scotland looks particularly naked, which I am sure would be of concern both to the Secretary of State and the Minister for the Armed Forces. That is because Scotland has a very high infantry profile and is the area where the reductions are likely to be made.
Mr. James Gray: My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Is he aware that, if the infantry and the yeomanry were to be abolished, similarly the whole of Gloucestershire and most of Wiltshire would be entirely empty of the Territorial Army?
Sir George Young: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. When I receive the replies to the letters to which I have referred, we will have a much clearer picture of exactly what the regional distribution of the cut might be.
On the role of the armed forces, I quote Brigadier Richard Holmes, now the Director of Reserve Forces and Cadets in the MOD, on the need for a presence:
"Not in a brassy and intrusive sense, but the daily and repeated demonstration, to the men and women who we defend and from whom we draw our strength, that we are them—and they are us: the nation's mirror, indeed."
In many parts of the country, the only adult military presence at the Remembrance day parade is provided by the TA. Cut the TA and that goes. With no national footprint, the armed forces become more isolated from the communities that they serve.
Many hon. Members want to speak in the debate, so let me conclude by quoting from the same article on the TA, which was written by Brigadier Holmes in 1995:
"But there is an irreducible minimum amount of funding: fall below it, and units are gut-shot … In our view we are dangerously close to this irreducible minimum, and we should be well aware that the effects of a small saving could be disproportionately destructive."
That was when the figure was 59,000, with which he expressed delight.
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In the previous debate on this subject, the Minister for the Armed Forces told us that no final decision had been taken. I believe him. We hope that there is time to change what is proposed. If not, I guarantee that Conservative Members will want to return to the subject. When we do, the atmosphere may be different, not just here, but outside. I hope that the Secretary of State will now tell the House that that will not be necessary.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): I wish to announce that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.32 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
supports the Government in its determination to ensure that the United Kingdom has armed forces that are modern, capable, relevant and structured for the new post Cold War strategic realities; considers that the Territorial Army, like the rest of the armed forces, should continue to adapt to these realities; welcomes the valuable role played by the Territorial Army in the wider life of the nation; and is confident that the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review will be capable, relevant and even more usable reserve forces to help support Britain's foreign and security policies.
The speech by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), the Opposition spokesman, and the terms of the Opposition motion strike a commendably less hysterical note than much of the commentary and speculation in recent months about this one aspect of our armed forces, which have been part of a strategic defence review, which was widely welcomed by many people, including many hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is the most unprecedentedly open defence review in the recent past. It is open and consensual, and is designed to establish the widest possible agreement on what our armed forces should do in future and how best they can do it.
On that subject, we have had several good and well-informed debates and I am certain that this will be another. The Territorial Army has a long and honourable tradition in the service of our country. Generations of willing volunteers have served. Soldiers of the TA have fought with great distinction in some of the most desperate struggles that this nation has known.
Even today, individual TA members serve on special engagements with regulars in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, and in Cyprus with our commitment to the United Nations. Some 2,500 volunteers have served with the regulars in Bosnia. I pay tribute to their efforts in that stricken country, where the work of the British Army, regulars and Territorials together, and of our other services has done so much to bring hope where, at one point, there was none.
I look at that military experience, which the motion that has been tabled in the name of the Opposition acknowledges, and I see an inconsistency in the motion and in the argument of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire. The strategic defence review does not and will not undermine the Territorial Army; it will strengthen it. We do not intend to destroy the TA; we intend to enhance it. The strategic defence review will not downgrade the Territorial Army; it will, as the motion suggests and recommends, develop it and modernise it. We intend to ensure that the TA is relevant, usable,

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capable, effective, integrated and valued throughout the country. I am confident that, when the strategic defence review is eventually finalised, agreed and published in a White Paper, there will be wide agreement that what we have produced is a plan for modern forces in the modern world.
Mr. Mike Hancock: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way on that point: the strengthening of the TA via the defence review. Is he then saying that, if there is a cut in manpower, there will not necessarily be a cut in the defence budget to the TA and that that money will be recycled within the TA, or is he saying that there will effectively be a reduction both in manpower and finance? I cannot see how he can square what he is saying if no more money is put in or if the money does not stay in, and how is it going to be used to strengthen the TA?
Mr. Robertson: Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman waits and listens to what I have to say and to tell him, he will understand precisely why it is that I say that our whole purpose and design is to ensure that the TA is strengthened and that its role is enhanced. The exercise was not done as some way of salami-slicing one section to fund another section. We have taken, unprecedentedly, as I said, a holistic view of the whole defence budget and of all the military capability that this country has and needs in future.
There are going to be winners as well as losers in any strategic defence review. The point that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire has underlined—that the Territorial Army and the reserves are among the only group of people who are capable of lobbying Members of this House and the populace in general—should be borne in mind. Let people come to their conclusions when they see the way in which we have reconfigured the whole picture, not one section of the picture, which has happened to put specific figures speculatively into the public domain.
Mr. Crispin Blunt: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robertson: I want to make a little progress before I take all the jumping up and down on the other side. [Interruption.] I make a sensible point. I intend to be constructive because we are interested in the quality of all sections of our armed forces. I am willing to take interventions, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will at the end of the debate, so that hon. Members have an opportunity to put their view across.
When we have published the defence review, we will have reserve forces that will be integrated as part of a coherent approach to defence and will be relevant to needs today, tomorrow and long into the future. Numbers are not the only or even the main issue that is at stake here. Indeed, the previous Government made much of that fact in the reductions for which they were responsible in the reserves and in the Territorial Army.
We will also continue the invaluable local links and the wider involvement of the Territorial Army in our society. The Territorial Army draws much of its strength from its local roots and enjoys the support of the communities in
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which it is based. I know that the concern that has been expressed in this and other debates by hon. Members on both sides of the House reflects the concerns of those communities.
Mr. Barry Jones: On that point, may I tell my right hon. Friend of the anxieties of the Royal Welch Fusiliers? The third battalion TA, which I visited today, has anxieties and the communities that it serves support it. We hope for a continued strong presence in north Wales. I visited the battalion today and, as an ex-service man, I would say that it gave a brilliant demonstration. I hope that he might be able to help.
Mr. Robertson: My hon. Friend is a powerful advocate for his constituency and for the regiment based in it. When any review takes place, there is inevitably anxiety across the forces—not just in individual Territorial Army units, but in the Regular Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Frankly, over the past couple of decades, the only experience they have had of reviews is of exercises that have pretended to be strategy-led, but which resulted in huge cuts in capability. I ask my hon. Friend to tell his territorials that we have considered the matter on the basis of the operational capability that this country will need for the future. We will achieve that inside the budget that we have inherited.
I have no doubt that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire, in the unlikely event that the Conservatives had won the election, would have been faced with many of the same tough decisions that I am having to make now. These are not easy options. The last Government reduced the defence budget by one third in their last seven years. There was no prospect that they would increase the defence budget.
It is true that the Territorial Army offers many in the wider community contact with the armed forces which they might otherwise not experience. Furthermore, the training it provides and the values it instils in the volunteer are of great benefit to society. I have no doubt that many hon. Members will wish to reinforce to me tonight just how important they are.
I acknowledge the importance of the TA's specific role in supporting the cadet movement, which we greatly value—not just for the youth development work which is its primary role, but for its recruiting effort on behalf of the armed forces. As a former Army cadet, I could hardly conclude otherwise. We are looking to see what we can do for the cadets, and we will increase the support that is given to them.
Mr. A. J. Beith: The right hon. Gentleman has listed a number of benefits that the Territorial Army brings to the community, to youth work and to the public perception of the Army. Is there some mechanism whereby all that added value can be costed into the whole equation of the strategic defence review, or is he merely looking at that side of the balance sheet that assesses the TA's operational role? Significant as that is, there must be some way of measuring other benefits as well.
Mr. Robertson: We have to make exactly the same calculation for the Regular Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, and for all the capabilities that this

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country has at its command. However, at the end of the day, the decision is that the budget of the Ministry of Defence will be in excess of £21 billion—the figure we inherited from the Conservative Government. There was a massive one-third reduction over seven years.
We have to consider all the measurements within the whole. We have to measure the value and the utility of the TA and the other reserves. It is interesting that tonight the Opposition have tabled a motion about the Territorial Army alone. They seem to have no interest in or concern about the RAF and Navy reserves. They all have to be measured in the equation.
All these aspects are important, but, above all, the Territorial Army is there to fulfil an operational role, and it is on the operational role that I want to concentrate tonight.
The Territorial Army has seen change since the end of the cold war. Its strength has fallen from a peak of 78,500 in 1987 to 56,700 today. The establishment of the TA in 1987, under the last Administration, was 91,000, but it was reduced to 59,000—the figure that we inherited. Therefore, if people are to make judgments about what might happen in this defence review, they would be wise to look at the Conservative party's record before doing so.
Sir George Young: The Secretary of State must recognise that there was a dramatically improved security position in Europe, and almost every NATO country was able to reduce its budget by between 20 and 30 per cent. That is not the position now, so there is no justification for such a reduction. The right hon. Gentleman must not continue to assert that the reductions under the Conservative Government were the result of some Treasury-driven craze; it was a logical and balanced response, enabling us to put resources into health and education.
Mr. Robertson: It takes formidable acting skills to tell us now that the cuts that were made under the last Administration were driven solely by the end of the cold war and not by the Treasury exacting a heavy price. The evidence of the Treasury's hand is the incoherence of the cuts that were made. Of course strategic circumstances change; of course there were bound to be reductions in defence expenditure in this country, as in other countries. The main criticism of the previous Government was of the way they left holes in capability that robbed us of the opportunity to put our troops into the right place at the right time.
Further changes are taking place in the strategic landscape, and they will increase over the next 10 to 15 years. It is because we are configuring our armed forces for the new challenges, and because of the huge operational strains, that we have embarked upon the review. Just as we have looked at every capability of each of the three services and the civilian back-up, so, too, should we look at the role of the Territorial Army.
Mr. Allan Rogers: Does not my right hon. Friend find it rather strange that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) should talk about cuts in the way he has when, from 1985 onwards, year on year, the Conservative Government cut the money
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available to the armed forces? If I catch the Chair's eye, I will illustrate that. The right hon. Gentleman is silly to come up with such an argument.
Mr. Robertson: The defence communities are aware of that. They want a coherent outcome that makes sense in the circumstances. They know that some reductions in capability will be necessitated by the fact that capability shortfalls must be made up if we are to send troops into conflict safely, securely and effectively. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire knows that, and the public know it. They will be sensible when they see the outcome.
Mr. Tom King: The right hon. Gentleman knows that there was a change in strategic circumstances, and that the most significant change under "Options for Change" was the withdrawal from Germany at the end of the cold war, and the consequent number of forces that we brought back. He will also know that the architects of "Options for Change" were Lord Vincent—who was an outstanding Chief of Defence Staff, much respected throughout the Ministry of Defence, and subsequently chairman of the military committee in NATO—and the current permanent secretary at the Ministry, Richard Mottram. I should be very worried if the right hon. Gentleman were accusing them of incoherence. I have the greatest respect for their abilities.
Mr. Robertson: It is a bit much for a former Defence Secretary to blame officials for the outcome. I dare say that Lord Vincent, who has been assisting me in the defence review as a member of my expert panel—I very much value the advice that he has given—and the permanent secretary may well have assembled much of the information, but the responsibility for the outcome has to lie at the door of those responsible for "Options for Change" and for the defence cost studies. Therefore, in this debate, let us not try to blame officials. We should grant them immunity to that.
I realise that the changes and reorganisation have not been easy for territorial and reserve units, which are composed largely of people who work a few hours or a couple of days a week. Such organisations face challenges in adapting to the new circumstances. However, I should like to make two points about the position in which we have been left by the various reorganisations and changes made under the previous Administration.
First, most of the Territorial Army is currently held at low readiness against the possibility of a cold war threat—to defend against an invasion, primarily by the Soviet Union, and spetznaz attacks on vital installations in the United Kingdom. Part of the judgment in determining that readiness level was that, understandably, the Government would resort to compulsory call-out of the Territorial Army only in the most extreme circumstances. However, that begs the question of what to do if the possibility of such circumstances arising becomes so remote that we do not have to maintain any standing forces against them.
After our foreign policy analysis—which we have shared widely, and which is widely shared—that issue has arisen—[Interruption.] If Opposition Members really anticipate a massed attack by components of the former Soviet Union, I should be interested to hear their views.
Secondly, across the entire British Army, we have 73 battalions: 33 TA battalions, the majority of which are geared to fight on British soil; and 40 regular battalions.

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Altogether—in one guise or another—61 battalions are light infantry battalions. Therefore, 61 battalions could not be put into the front line of a modern armoured battle. We should also compare that number of battalions with our eight tank regiments, seven air defence regiments, 14 artillery regiments, 19 engineer regiments and 16 field ambulance units.
We need many regular battalions to manage all our current operations. The House, if not the public, will be familiar with the level of commitment currently faced by our regular forces. Although we welcome the support given by individual members of the TA infantry to the regulars in all those operations, in no credible or plausibly foreseeable circumstances will we need at one time 61 light infantry battalions. Most obviously, the level of force that we are committed to fighting at home is out of all proportion to the threat.
Mr. Julian Brazier: As my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) said, most of our wars have been unanticipated, and the past two wars—the Gulf war and the Falklands war—were both fought in open terrain, with no civilian populations, where large ground forces were unnecessary. Let us suppose that the Balkans—where 14 Axis divisions proved to be inadequate in the second world war—were to blow up tomorrow, or that we had to invade Iraq. We should remember that the American, Australian and Canadian armies all have greater combat capabilities and more infantry in their reserve forces than they do in their regular forces.
Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman—any hon. Member—can postulate a series of possible future threats and quite easily state the necessary capability to deal with those threats. However, there is a finite defence budget, which the previous Government reduced to £21 billion.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: We have to anticipate anything.
Mr. Robertson: We cannot plan for every eventuality and every surprise. We have to have a portfolio of forces that is able to deal with as much as we can currently possibly anticipate. It is perfectly sensible to take that point of view.
I tell the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier)—who speaks with some authority on the matter, and takes a very strong interest in that one key component of our capabilities—that, since the second world war, we have never compulsorily called out formed units of the Territorial Army. We did not do so in Korea, in Suez, in the Falklands or in the Gulf. We have not called out any of the formed units of our Territorial Army.
Sensibly, calmly and moderately, I make the point to the House that we have to strike a balance between our Regular Army and our Territorial Army, and between the Navy and the Air Force, taking into account the likely eventualities. There is not likely to be a Government, Conservative or Labour, who will expand the defence budget to take into account every conceivable eventuality.
Mr. Hugh Bayley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is precisely because of the changed strategic environment that the Government have to
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develop a changed role for the TA? Unless the TA has a believable and a real role, there is no argument for it. Does he agree also that the role performed by the pre-formed Territorial Army battalion of the Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire—which went as the first pre-formed unit to Bosnia—is the type of role that the Government should be considering in their defence review, to build a real role and to give a real future to the TA?
Mr. Robertson: My hon. Friend speaks eminent common sense. We are examining precisely that type of role. As I progress towards the end of my speech, some of the thinking that has influenced us—on precisely how we will strengthen the TA—should become apparent. We are not interested simply in sidelining the TA—far from it. We shall find a new role in the new circumstances for the TA, making it much stronger and much more valued in society. I believe that we will also make it much more welcome.
Some people say that Territorial Army units are far less expensive than regular ones. Of course they are. However, no military capability is cheap. Each of the battalions costs annually between £2 million and £3 million to maintain. A total of £350 million of the annual defence budget is spent on the Territorial Army, not including the cost of their equipment, which could be valued at about £1 billion. We should remember also that Territorial Army units do not, like their regular colleagues, provide a 365-day, year-round capability.
Defence resources are limited. Moreover, there are glaring gaps in other areas of defence that—as Opposition Members know—we will have to fill.
So much for the financial balance sheet. There is another penalty to pay in maintaining units that we do not need, in roles that we do not need, against a threat that is receding and may never return. Furthermore, the penalty is paid by the units themselves.
The House will be aware of the consultations that the Government launched in parallel with the review, and will know that we have consulted widely with experts—for example, with former Secretaries of State for Defence, and Chiefs of the Defence Staff—within the services, and with members of the public.
The House may not be surprised to hear that the public's understanding of the Territorial Army seems to be very patchy. Whereas some people know a lot about it, others know very little. However, most worrying, I think, is a perception—with which hon. Members also may be familiar—of the Territorial Army as "weekend warriors". Some people say that the TA is not necessary and not serious. Such a view is sad and wrong, but it exists. I intend to change it, because the Territorial Army deserves better.
The House may recall last year's public speculation that we were about to declare the Territorial Army a leisure brigade. I hope that not only that but much other speculation is now dead. However, such speculation demonstrates my point about how the debate on the issue has been conducted.
We will do the Territorial Army no service by leaving large parts of it to languish in declining roles. However, I see an alternative to a declining role, in which the Territorial Army forms a key part of our armed forces. It is a role in which the Territorial Army can say to the

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public and to their comrades in defence, "You will need us, and we will be there." It is role for which, today, I say to the Territorial Army, "I need you; the Armed Forces of our country need you; and the country needs you."
The territorials—like hon. Members—have to adapt to the new strategic realities. We all know what those strategic realities are. First, we can count on much longer warning times, compared to the cold war, before a major and direct threat to the United Kingdom emerges. Secondly, the pursuit of our foreign policy objectives in this uncertain world calls for the ability to project power for many lesser eventualities. How many can we see immediately on the horizon? Thirdly, therefore, our armed forces must be structured and resourced to meet the unpredictable at short notice, when required.
We need the territorials. We need them to provide formed units that may be integrated into our Army brigades and higher formations for what we might term "power projection" operations. We also need the territorials, and the regular reservists, to provide individuals to reinforce our units for warfighting, because in war we need our units to be larger than they are in peace. Looking to the long term, we need the Territorial Army, our regulars and our regular reserves, to act as a basis from which we might expand our forces should the need arise.
Let me concentrate on power projection. We shall gain much by giving the territorials a greater role in power projection. For example, if we envisage a crisis on NATO's periphery for which we need to put a full division into the field, the presence of thousands of Territorial Army soldiers would greatly increase our capability. But if we are to do this, then we, here, must be prepared to call them out in such circumstances. In the recent past, we have not done so.
When I attended the TAVRA council seminar that was held to get over a strong message about the territorials, one thing that I heard loud and clear was that the territorials wanted to be in a position to be called up. That is one of the points of view that I have taken on board.
Mr. Brazier rose—
Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman will probably have the opportunity to speak. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will wind up the debate, and I should not take too long, despite the interventions I have accepted and the points to which I have responded.
As I was saying, this is an important point, and one that deserves cross-party agreement, which I hope we can get. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) will agree with me about call-ups, but I hope he will. Let us make no mistake: if we go down this route, the territorials will not be just a nice add-on to a Regular Army which would be self-sufficient, anyway—they will be a vital addition to the Army.
We will need signallers, drivers, artillery men and women, military police, intelligence and survey teams. We will need TA soldiers who can repair battle-damaged vehicles, operate sophisticated military equipment, deal with local civilian populations, and engage in a very wide range of other specialist and core military tasks. Military
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jargon might label this "support", but it is real soldiering: dirty, dangerous, in the line of fire, and absolutely essential to any conflict in which we might be engaged.
I expect that we will conclude that we need many more medical reserves. As I said at Question Time today, the defence review has shown that there are serious weaknesses in many aspects of our medical forces, which we must address.
We are going to need units to be trained, capable and deployable at the readiness for which we require them. We are looking at how we may best bring territorial and regular training together, so that we can make better use of all the training that defence provides. However, we must recognise—this is perhaps the hardest part—that the need to defend the United Kingdom from a potential Soviet threat has diminished, and in many ways disappeared.
As most of our territorial infantry battalions and, indeed, many of yeomanry regiments are intended to fight at home, hon. Members will understand from what I said earlier that we will find it more difficult to see roles for these units than for others, but re-roling is one of the alternatives available to make these units more usable and much more satisfied.
We must also ensure that, where we do need a capability at very short notice, the unit that provides it is regular. We need to improve and enhance our management of the Territorial Army. I am thinking here of mobilisation procedures which at present are ad hoc, and need to be put on to a more dedicated footing. We also need better career management of individuals within the TA.
In previous debates, many hon. Members have referred to the work of the Territorial, Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Associations, as did the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire. I join all those who have paid tribute to the TAVRAs. Their members give their time freely out of a deep commitment to this country's reserve forces. I have met senior members of the TAVRAs a couple of times in the course of the defence review.
The role of the TAVRAs—it is one that works—has much to offer the Defence Council which they exist to advise. The TAVRAs have stood the test of time in a way that few other tri-service institutions can boast, as their last reorganisation was in 1968. While we are considering some administrative changes to them, we see the attractions in retaining all the essentials of this relationship. We want to continue both their role as advisers to the Defence Council and their function in administering a range of day-to-day functions on behalf of the reserve forces.
The strategic defence review has given us the opportunity to modernise and restructure our regular and our reserve forces in a coherent—
Mr. Owen Paterson rose—
Mr. Robertson: I am sorry, but time is against me, and many other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate.
The review has given us the opportunity to modernise and restructure our regular and reserve forces in a coherent and enduring way. It has confirmed the need for many current roles and some new ones, but also the need for some changes to existing roles.

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The new Territorial Army will be capable and usable, and fitted to work with regular forces on all types of operations to a much greater extent than before. It will be sufficient to meet any likely operational eventuality. Details of the new structure are now being put together against a set of principles that have been agreed in consultation with senior Territorial Army officers.
The traditions of the Territorial Army are proud, and its members are committed. It must be possible, with that pride and commitment, with the right training, the right structure and the right direction, to fashion a new future for the Territorial Army, a future in which the TA will again be a key instrument for our security policy, and a credit to the nation.
8.6 pm
Sir Edward Heath: I strongly support the positive approach adopted by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young). I hope that it will be adhered to for the rest of the debate, which I hope will not descend into the noisy wrangle that has unfortunately now become characteristic of the House of Commons.
My maiden speech was on European union for political, economic and military reasons. That was on 26 June 1950. My second speech was made on 18 April 1951 and it was on the Territorial Army. I had to get special permission to make that speech because, in the meantime, I had become a Whip and was not allowed to express myself without the permission of the Chief Whip. I made that speech because of my connection with the TA, which I declare to the House now.
The Honourable Artillery Company was formed in 1537 and is the oldest of all such institutions. It was formed by Henry VIII. At the end of the war, I commanded a regiment of it, and in 1947 I commanded the newly formed 2nd Regiment of the HAC for four years. I then commanded the guard at the Tower of London as master gunner. I therefore have many connections with the TA. I have been a member of the HAC for 53 years, and it is of immense importance to me and many others.
We have become accustomed to discussing the TA in rather difficult situations. We did so in the early 1950s while the Labour Government were still in office, and we did so in the 1960s when the numbers started falling rapidly. The Government of 1970–1974 managed to restore them to a certain extent, but not enough. They declined again under another Labour Government. So in our debate tonight, we are continuing a rather repetitive performance, but one that can be very healthy, as the Secretary of State said.
I was glad to hear the Secretary of State say that there is a strategic review. He went on to mention foreign policy. Of course, the two are closely interbound, and I am glad that he emphasised that, because a review is desperately needed in both respects. It must take account of our political position as a member of the European Union and of our economic possibilities as far as our defence forces are concerned. Both must be taken together.
I am afraid that, all too often, declarations from political leaders give the impression that we can deal with any problem throughout the world and, in fact, we have a mission to do so. Today, nothing could be further from
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the truth. We are just not capable of doing so. I have heard such declarations made by former Prime Ministers and by the present Prime Minister, who gives the impression that the world is at his feet and he will organise it. I hope that that is not really his view, and if it is, I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will correct him, because that can lead to serious mistakes. When the review is finished, we shall examine very carefully how it is proposed that we should handle world affairs in future and where we believe that we can play a part.
The military is important in all that. We are emphasising tonight, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) did in an earlier debate, and as we have done before, the importance of the Territorial Army, as well as the other territorial arrangements that the Secretary of State has rightly emphasised. The Territorial Army is not, for obvious reasons, as important as the Navy and the Air Force, but that has always been accepted.
We come to the question how the strategic significance of the Territorial Army has to be assessed. It has long been widely recognised that one can review such matters, but one of the difficulties is that the representation—to use a grandiose word—and influence of the Territorial Army at the highest levels are very small. There is no point in trying to deny that, and every senior officer whom I have met and had counsel with, from the highest levels downwards, has always, when pushed to the point, accepted that. There is no conspiracy, as some people are saying. It is natural that if one has no direct relationship with the Territorial Army and one wants to find a solution, one seeks it without taking particular notice of the TA.
The Secretary of State has tonight given us many assurances, and I hope that he will be able to maintain them. I shall come to one of those assurances in a moment. As the TA has very little influence in any Ministry of Defence organisation, it is easy to see why unwelcome incidents occur.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire put forward the strong argument that maintaining the Territorial Army is far less costly than maintaining the Regular Army or other forms of military activity.
The idea of weekend holiday boys was mentioned. Those are the jeers of members of the press, which were wryly reported this weekend, and of people who have no sympathy whatever with any form of military activity, regular or territorial. We ignore that, but I agree that a large operation is required to inform the public of exactly what being a territorial involves. I was glad to hear the Secretary of State say that he is determined to bring that about. I shall not inquire at this point how he proposes to do it, because he may not have made up his mind, but it will be quite a task to bring home to the public the part that the territorials play and how important they are.
That is an issue that we were dealing with when I was commanding the HAC two nights a week plus weekends and a fortnight in camp. That is quite a demand on an ordinary chap, and the return that he gets to cover expenses is not all that great. He makes a big contribution.
I come now to the important point—the general suggestion that the strategic review will examine the territorial on the basis of how he fills the gaps. That is emphasised by recent operations in which territorials were

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sent to Bosnia and elsewhere. They do not do so as a separate entity; they go where there is a need that regular forces have not been able to fulfil. That is what worries all the territorials I know. They do not want to be simply a stop-gap operation; they want always to be a separate entity and to operate as such, and then they will meet the requirements of the strategy, providing that it is worked out on that basis. That is why the strategic review will be of great importance.
If those at the top of the Ministry of Defence say, "We have a gap here, so we must encourage a particular body to fill it," that will not meet the needs of the Territorial Army, because it is far greater than a series of gap-fillers or specialists who may be needed. To exist at all, it must be a complete social organisation that depends on its internal relationships to produce the answer that it wants and that those outside want. It must be complete in that sense, and if it is not, it will not continue, but will gradually fragment and break down.
I hope that when the Secretary of State considers his strategic review and what is proposed, he will always bear it in mind that territorials must be entities and have their own future. He can stand up against the demands that it should always be the Territorial Army that suffers and say that the regulars could also be reduced to meet our present requirements.
As I have tried to emphasise, those requirements are important in a proper assessment. We are no longer the world power that we once were. There is no point in pretending otherwise. We are no longer able to tell people exactly what to do. Even the Americans have discovered that today they cannot govern every trade deal in the world as they want to. It was a big blow when America became the major power rather than one of two super-powers, and it still has not accustomed or acclimatised itself to its role in the world.
We must allow for that, and we must not allow ourselves to be moved to one side. We must work out our own policies as part of the European Union and with other, limited responsibilities in other parts of the world. Unless we now face up to all that, we shall simply have another period of wrangling, arguing and doing no good, particularly when we are overstretching our capabilities.
I wish the Secretary of State well in his strategic review and the decisions that he must make. From what he has said, we can rely on proper respect for the Territorial Army and its future. I also hope that he will ensure that it retains its entities and does not become simply a filler of gaps that exist for other reasons. If he does so, he will indeed be praised.
8.18 pm
Mr. Allan Rogers: It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), especially as he has such a positive approach to the problem that we are discussing. Like him, I hope that we can all contribute positively to what the Government are proposing.
I must confess that I approached this debate with a measure of hostility. As an ex-member of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and having served in the Monmouthshire Regiment of the Territorial Army, I am very much on the TA's side—like many who have been associated with it.
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We know the value of it and its contribution not just in our communities but in a military sense. Now that I have listened to the Secretary of State, however, my hostility is washing away, particularly because of his positive approach and the way in which, as he described, he is considering the problem of trying to define a new role for the Territorial Army for the next millennium.
I had the privilege—perhaps—of being an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman on these matters while the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), who is no longer present, and some of his predecessors were chopping our military potential. That was not after the cold war had ended; it was between 1985 and 1989. The Russian problem—the cold war—still existed, yet huge cuts were made in the armed forces. More than that, we had very long-term commitments in other areas.
Therefore, it is no good the Opposition attacking the Government from a holier-than-thou stance. If we consider "Options for Change" and what the Conservative party did in power, Conservative Members look rather ridiculous when they criticise the Government in such a debate. The irreducible minimum, which the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) attributed to Brigadier Holmes, was brought about by the Conservative Government. If there is an irreducible minimum, it is because of the previous Administration.
The Secretary of State has given me a great deal of hope by describing how he is trying to fit our forces into a role that relates to the strategic review. Time and again, in opposition, we asked the Government to do that, but all we had were substantial Treasury-driven cuts, year in, year out. Those cuts had nothing to do with the changing role of the armed forces or a strategic review, for which we continually asked. Let no one on the Opposition Benches attack the Government for not approaching the matter positively. The phrase that was trotted out was that the Government were creating a leaner and meaner machine, yet such a process produced an irreducible minimum, which left our military capability in an extreme state.
Mr. Gray: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rogers: Others want to speak, so I shall not give way.
I hope that the Secretary of State will think about some of the points that are being made. To an ex-infantryman, the idea that the infantry will play a lesser role, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seemed to be saying, is rather sad. I have always thought—at least I was always taught—that infantrymen were needed, after all the gunners, engineers and everyone else, to fill up space. I therefore wonder quite what the strategic role will be and why we need forces at all if sufficient infantrymen are not to play a proper role.
The most prominent example concerning the argument about the role of the reserves, how soon they can be put into action and whether they are capable, was in 1914. I am not quite old enough to remember that far back, but I have read how the British expeditionary force was wiped out. The massive input of reserves from the Territorial Army and the county yeomanry was the only reason why we managed to hold our position in France. That is a classic example of why a full civilian reserve Army is necessary.

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The Secretary of State described medical skills in the Territorial Army and how they can be developed as a back-up, in making the point that civilians enter the Territorial Army with a high degree of skill that they have acquired in their civilian lives. Engineers, those with skills in new technology and the various technical regiments have been trained by industry, without the public purse being charged, and transfer their skills to the armed forces.
There is a general level of fitness, especially among infantrymen and special combat forces, and the level of ability among the TA's infantry men is very high. I have seen them in action; they can make an enormous and very positive contribution. It is not as if Dad's Army is to be called up in a crisis.
Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rogers: I cannot resist giving way to the hon. Lady.
Mrs. Gorman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the enormous contributions that the Territorial Army makes is in education? Many young people who join as cadets and become full members enhance their qualifications, and therefore fit in well with the Government's drive for education, education, education.
Mr. Rogers: If the hon. Lady had been present for the Secretary of State's speech, she would have heard him make that very point. We all recognise the enormous contribution that the Army cadet force makes, using the facilities of local territorial buildings. We cannot underplay the value of such units in the community. One of the great strengths of an army—or a defence force, call it what we will—is that it is often locally based. Comradeship in the infantry is developed because regiments are county-based, and those in them have often been to school or worked together before joining the armed forces.
I am pleased with what the Secretary of State has said. We seem to have moved away from just Treasury-driven cuts and are adopting an holistic approach, to make our forces not just leaner and meaner but more effective, in a clearly redefined role. Opposition Members would do well in this debate to sit down and shut up, because their record in this area is pretty bad.
8.27 pm
Mr. Mike Hancock: I should like to pick up one of the points made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), which was also picked up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) when he asked a question about the link between the Territorial Army and the community. Sadly, the Secretary of State did not describe that future role. I should think that the majority of hon. Members would agree that there is a very strong link between TA units and the local community, and I am sure that every one of us would want it to continue. I hope that the Minister for the Armed Forces will react to that point and develop it when he replies to the debate.
We are fortunate to have the opportunity to debate the Territorial Army. I congratulate the Conservative Opposition on tabling the motion. How disappointing it is
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that we are debating it without knowing what the defence review is about. We were promised that, by now, the outcome of the review would be available for the nation to discuss. Had it been possible to keep to the timetable, we could have been debating the outcome of the review.
In responding to the motion, I am afraid, the Secretary of State did not go far enough for some of us to be able to support him in the Lobby. Despite many fine words, there was a lack of clarity in his response. Like the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), I wish the Secretary of State luck. Most of us know that the defence review is in the hands of the Treasury. Indeed, one could question whether the TA is safe in its hands. One could seriously suggest that it is not. We have strong reservations.
It would have been good if the Secretary of State had been able to say that the Conservative motion was nonsense, and that the suggested 40,000 reduction would not happen in any shape or form. However, one would need to support the Government powerfully to believe that what he said would not lead to that outcome. He did not refute it, and the Liberal Democrats will support the Conservative motion, although with a heavy, not a glad, heart. We had hoped against hope—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) can smile, but some of us were optimistic that the Secretary of State's opening speech would give us some enthusiasm for the idea that the Territorial Army would be safe in the Government's hands.
Many of us—if not the whole nation—recognise the work and value of the TA. The Secretary of State was kind enough to say that it still links with regular services in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, the Falklands and Bosnia. However, despite its fine record of achievement, the force's future remains murky at best. What the Government have in mind for the TA is not clear.
The Conservatives stand convicted of making judgments of which they might now think better, because they presided over a substantial reduction in the TA between 1988 and when they left office. In 1988, its membership was 74,700; by 1997, it was down to less than 56,000. There were 41 battalions and 164 companies in 1988; there are now 33 and 95 respectively. The Conservatives cannot stand one pace removed from the blame that they are trying to attach to the Government.
TA centres play a vital role in communities, but their numbers have fallen by nearly 100 since 1988. We must all accept, as the Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) have pointed out, that there is a changing climate. We Liberals are no different; we recognise the changing climate, the peace dividend and the fact that the TA and other reserve forces cannot stand back from the realities of life.
That said, the TA does much more than support the community and the regular forces, when required. Hon. Members who have spoken—and, I am sure, those who will speak—have paid tribute to the commitment of TA service personnel, both men and women, who are serving in Bosnia. Hundreds, if not thousands, have done valiant work there. The TA's role is changing, and it has allowed itself to change from within. It has adapted, and it continues to do so.
I stress the importance of the TA in education and training, and the opportunities to return to full-time employment that it has offered to countless people whom

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I represent, who have gained successful employment because of TA training initiatives. I spoke recently to a group of truck drivers at the ferry port in Portsmouth, and found that six out of 30 of them had gained heavy goods vehicle licences through the TA. They all admitted that they would not otherwise have been in employment, because no one—certainly not the Conservative Government, who did not put money into giving those men an opportunity—would have funded such a programme. They are now back in work, and remain committed to the TA. It was interesting to hear their thoughts on the future.
The hon. Member for Rhondda was right to talk about the skills that the TA brings to the regular Army. Officers and non-commissioned officers in the TA willingly share their skills with others, and that helps to produce many ready recruits for the regular Army; 10 per cent. of Army recruits join because of the opportunities offered by the TA and the cadet forces, and bring with them techniques that they learned in the TA.
It would be a travesty of all that the Secretary of State has said if the review seriously undermined the Army cadet force.
Mr. George Robertson: The hon. Gentleman may not have been listening, but I said that we would give increased resources to the Army cadet force.
Mr. Hancock: I am grateful for that clarification. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I was listening, but I had hoped to hear a commitment that spelled out what that meant. What does giving more resources to the Army cadet forces really mean? Many such forces survive only because they are located close to TA units.
Mr. Brazier: And to infantry units.
Mr. Hancock: Yes, and to infantry units.
The TA has an ability to change. For example, the unit at Winchester has transformed itself, not because of any clear directive from the Ministry of Defence, but because it made a determined effort to address a changing world. The TA has not stood still, and flatly refuses to do so. It wants the Government to give a continuing commitment to ensuring its future in the defence of the country.
The TA is not only about skills and education, passing on skills or community links. It is about the jobs that are provided in the civilian world. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) tells me that 30 civilians were employed by the TA in his area, and he is seriously concerned about the future of the unit and those jobs. A leading Scottish newspaper, Dundee's The Courier and Advertiser, last month claimed that the TA was bringing millions of pounds to the Scottish economy by creating jobs for part-time and regular officers—men and women—and scores of civilian jobs. That is not peculiar to Scotland; it is the same in most constituencies in which the TA is located.
The Government have made great play over the past few months with the claim that the defence review is not financially driven. If that is so, they would be wise to think of the TA as a financial success story. It has cost us £340.4 million in the past year, which is 1.6 per cent.
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of the entire 1997–98 budget. For comparative purposes, let me say that the average TA member cost the Government about £6,100; that is cheaper than the reserve forces for the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, but I share the view that they are equally important. As I represent a Portsmouth constituency, I strongly advocate strengthening our commitment to the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy.
Having taken those costs into account, how can the Government possibly object to the continued spending of 1.6 per cent. of the defence budget, when they are willing to accept—if not gladly—the £3 billion cost of over-expenditures contained in the National Audit Office's latest report on 25 major projects?
Ms Rachel Squire: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government have inherited the £3 billion costs mentioned in the NAO report because of the mismanagement and incompetence of the previous Government?
Mr. Hancock: I could accept that if, at the end of the report, the Government had said what they were going to do about it. I remember a similar report this time last year, when the Government also said that they had inherited problems. The inheritance argument can be used for only so long. There comes a time—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Spellar): It refers to 1997.
Mr. Hancock: Of course it refers to schemes for 1997, but I thought that the Government came to power on 1 April 1997.
Mr. George Robertson: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about waste in the Department, but the report that he is waving covers the period before we came to power. In the strategic defence review, I promise that there will be radical proposals to the sort of problems highlighted in that report and to those that have been created over the years. I hope that it will be successful and that he will be able to congratulate us, but I also hope that he will not blame us for everything that went on before.
Mr. Hancock: I would not dream of blaming you for what went on before.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I trust that the hon. Gentleman is not blaming the Chair for all those problems.
Mr. Hancock: Some hon. Members can claim no involvement, whether for or against, what went on. I was not here during the period concerned. If I had been, perhaps I might have had more to say at the time. Of course I am not blaming the Secretary of State or the Government for the problems that they inherited. I am saying that there is a more worthy response than the one that we have had to those problems rather than simply shirking and passing the blame, which is not good for anyone.
As every right hon. and hon. Member has said, the Territorial Army is a great asset to the nation and a real bargain, yet the Government fail to realise that. Buying an overpriced missile seems to be more impressive to them—some people will always prefer the Ferrari to the Ford.

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The TA is truly a people's Army. It really embraces the community and men and women from all walks of life. It gives great opportunity and is worthy of support. If we are unable to give that commitment to those men and women, how on earth can the Secretary of State suggest, as he did tonight, that he will go further with them and that we will get more out of them? How does he hope to do so if the Government cannot give the assurance that they need? They offer diversity of skills and combat support enhancement and they seek a guaranteed and continuous role.
Anything short of that from us here tonight will be seen as a slap in the face for men and women who give up their time week in and week out, many of whom are prepared to put their lives on the line in Bosnia and Northern Ireland, for example, for the sake of this country's defence. Those people are worthy of more than a slap in the face. They are worthy of continuous support and of a bright and clear future.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, I remind the House that this is a relatively short debate and that many Members want to contribute, so it would be helpful if speeches were limited.
8.41 pm
Mr. Huw Edwards: I acknowledge the contributions made by right hon. and hon. Members to the debate. As a relatively new Member, it is a particular privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), who has a distinct expertise in this matter. The debate has certainly shown that there is much expertise in the House on the subject. I confess that I do not have a military background, but simply represent an area with a fine military tradition. I wish to speak to that tradition and about the role of the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers.
This should be part of a national debate and not merely an Opposition day debate, because there is considerable misunderstanding and a lack of appreciation of the role of the Territorial Army and other reserve forces. The TA has played a long and distinguished role in our armed services and will play a distinguished role in the future. I shall illustrate that by referring to the regiment in my constituency. Monmouth is the regimental headquarters of the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia)—the senior regiment in the Reserve Army.
Mr. Gray: I have heard the hon. Gentleman say before that the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers is the senior regiment in the Territorial Army. He is incorrect, as the Honourable Artillery Company is the oldest regiment and takes right of line, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) and I have both been members of it.
Mr. Edwards: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I have sought clarification. The Honourable Artillery Company is the oldest regiment and the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers is the senior. I have that on the authority of the recently retired commanding officer, with whom I clarified the matter a few weeks ago.
The regiment can trace its history back to 1539. It is the oldest unit in the entire British Army after the Honourable Artillery Company. Last Saturday, I attended the beating
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of the retreat ceremony and I have attended other regimental events, notably the dining out ceremony of the previous commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Lodge, to whom I pay particular tribute for his work to bring the regiment closer to the community in Monmouth and for work undertaken in a number of areas.
The Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers is one of the nine Territorial Army engineer regiments, providing general support and multi-capability support for the Regular Army. Squadrons of the regiment are based in a wide area from south Wales to the west midlands, including 100 Field Squadron at Cwmbran and Cardiff and 108 Field Squadron at Swansea. As part of the Royal Engineers, the regiment provides a wide range of skills and trades, including bridge building and the construction and repair of airfields, roads and railways, plus the skills that individual members bring from their civilian life.
I must highlight some of the achievements of the regiment at home and abroad in recent years. In Bosnia, the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers was the first TA regiment to work for a full six-month secondment in support of the Regular Army when a troop of two officers and 20 other ranks under Captain Louise Clarke supported 21 Engineer Regiment in such tasks as mine clearance, snow clearance and road building. I pay a particular tribute to Captain Clarke, who is an example of the way in which many women officers have played a higher role in the Territorial Army than in the Regular Army. More recently, Captain Nevill Simpson has returned from the multinational liaison headquarters in Bosnia.
Bosnia has provided an example par excellence of the role of the TA in supporting the Regular Army which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State acknowledged and paid tribute to earlier. The regiment has also provided troops to support the Regular Army on exercise recently in Wainwright in Canada.
Of course, the Territorial Army plays an important civilian role under the military aid to civil communities programme. For example, the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers has been involved in the construction of an adventure playground, in river diversion, bridge building, forestry work and woodland tracks. Those have included a track in Llanybydder in west Wales for people with disabilities, bridges over tributaries in the Wye valley and work on the construction of the new monkey house at Dudley zoo—activities that will be maintained and enhanced given the commitment—[Laughter.] I can assure Conservative Members who are laughing that I have been well briefed. I refer those who doubt what I say to the excellent report produced by the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve for Welsh Members at a briefing that I sponsored here.
When necessary, the Territorial Army is on call for disaster relief. It could have assisted during the recent floods in my constituency had it been requested to do so by the local authorities. I was sorry to hear that, because of the financial constraints imposed by the previous Government in the early 1990s, local authorities and other public bodies are charged heavily for the use of the Territorial Army and are therefore reluctant to request the use of equipment and personnel that are readily available.
The TA also makes a valid contribution to the local community in my constituency, often without adequate recognition. In the past two years, the regimental headquarters has been the setting for productions of

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"Macbeth", and of "Henry V", who was born at the castle in Monmouth. The Gwent young people's theatre put on those productions in conjunction with the regiment, and I encourage hon. Members to visit Monmouth in July to see this year's production of "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" at the castle. Finally, the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers contributes so much to maintaining the dignity of the annual remembrance service in Monmouth.
About 70 per cent. of the Army medical service is provided by the Territorial Army. In Wales, we have 203 Field Hospital Royal Army Medical Corps (Volunteers) although I regret that, in recent years, that corps has been severely reduced from a general to a field hospital. There is natural concern that "Options for Change" imposed excessive cuts on the Royal Army Medical Corps—I know that the Government want to deal with that.
The Army cadet force helps young people to develop leadership skills and discipline, training them primarily to become good citizens. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has acknowledged its role and committed additional resources to it. Recently, I met a group of Army cadets at the opening of the new Gilwern detachment in my constituency—I look forward to visiting the cadet forces' camp in Leek, Staffordshire, in July.
Mr. David Drew: I concur with my hon. Friend's point about the inextricable link between the TA and the Army cadet force. I am sure that he will agree with the chief constable of Gloucestershire, Mr. Tony Butler, who wrote to me on the importance of that link and of our recognising the social value of the cadet force.
Mr. Edwards: I certainly agree. In my constituency, the social services have forged links with the Army cadet force, as they have appreciated the role that it can play, especially in areas of social deprivation and with children and young people who are on the edge of juvenile delinquency.
This is clearly a crucial time in the strategic defence review, and there has been considerable speculation about the future of the Territorial Army and other reserve forces. I have no doubt that the TA provides a role in supporting the Regular Army and in contributing to the civilian duties that are not adequately appreciated by the public—we, as Members of Parliament, have a responsibility to inform and enlighten our constituents and our political parties about those important roles.
The Royal Engineers has nine TA regiments. I convey the concern that I have heard that, because of successful lobbying by the infantry territorial regiments, the Regular Army is required substantially to reduce the reserve engineers—from nine regiments to perhaps three. Like those with whom I have recently discussed the matter, I believe that that would be disastrous. The engineering regiments have combat and military skills that can have immense benefits in the aftermath of conflicts, as was demonstrated in Bosnia.
The Government have said that there must be a substantial reserve force, which is properly resourced to meet the new roles and requirements identified in the strategic defence review. The reserve forces must be relevant, usable and integrated—they must be capable of
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being speedily deployed at times of international and national crisis. I sincerely hope that the engineering regiments, most notably the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers, have demonstrated that they meet those requirements. I commend the Government's commitment to enhance, rather than to destroy, the Territorial Army.
8.52 pm
Mr. Julian Brazier: This debate goes to the heart of what the armed forces are for. I am proud to follow the excellent opening speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) and the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), the Father of the House.
On several occasions, Ministers have suggested that the TA is the only part of the armed forces that can speak for itself. As the son of a Regular Army officer, I find it particularly hard to make two harsh comments about the conduct of a small group of regular staff officers—neither of which, I believe, were what Ministers wanted. First, a decision was taken to make no comparative appraisal of the relative cost-effectiveness of regular and territorial combat units such as have been carried out in other countries. From the outset, it was decided to avoid any appraisals—the downgrading of the role of the Territorials from combat was never intellectually challenged.
Secondly—and more unedifying—we had the spectacle of a regular major-general openly boasting about leaking to the press proposals to decimate the Territorial Army. He must have known that that would hit TA morale and that the TA has no general officers to defend it. The TA had to turn to Members of Parliament—it had no one else. Many parts of the TA, including the infantry, had better recruitment records than their regular counterparts but, needless to say, TA recruitment has plummeted in recent months because of that dreadful publicity.
On the big picture, the armed forces have very important peacetime duties. As we know, they are overstretched because of Ulster and Bosnia—Ministers were right to take full account of that in the strategic defence review. However, grave as those duties are, the most important function of the armed forces is to participate in major conflicts, which, sadly, we almost never foresee. The first world war was unforeseen a few weeks before it happened; the Gulf war was unforeseen a few days before it happened.
The two most recent conflicts—in the Falklands and in the Gulf—were both fought over open, unpopulated terrain. Not since the Indonesian confrontation have we needed a large number of soldiers on the ground—of course, the Regular Army was much larger then. However, we may need substantial forces again, especially if the Balkans catch fire or if it proves necessary for the west to invade Iraq on the ground, which no Minister of the Crown should rule out.
As third-world countries steadily acquire weapons of mass destruction, the prospects of our suffering heavy casualties in defending our vital interests from some totally unanticipated threat are increasing, not declining. This is no time to bank on optimistic projections. Recent events in India and Indonesia are further reminders of the dangerous instability of the world in which we live.
Reserves are critical for two reasons. First, as is widely accepted, they provide military understanding in the wider civilian community—I know that the Minister is very

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conscious of that. Given the demise of the Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, which are now very small, that frail link is largely provided by the TA. Secondly, and even more importantly, the high cost of modern manpower means that we can afford only a small Regular Army in peacetime. Today, there are only two regular divisions; we should remember that 14 Axis divisions proved totally inadequate to pacify the Balkans in the second world war.
The combat arms are by far the most important element of the reserves. I do not underrate the importance of logistic and supporting units—many of them, particularly the medical units, play an important role in bolstering inadequate regular functions. The fact remains, however, that those regular units at least have civilian counterparts—from the national health service, BT and so on—who can, in principle, be put into uniform, whereas there is no civilian equivalent to combat units.
In America, comparisons were made between regular and National Guard combat units. When the excellent performance of the National Guard artillery in the Gulf war was examined, it was decided that more than 70 per cent. of American artillery should in future be held in the reserve forces. In a recent trial in the Nevada desert, a National Guard tank unit completely outmanoeuvred and thrashed a regular tank unit. The Americans have identified how to get more bangs for the buck.
In Australia, a largely reserve brigade is being stood up for deployment at 90 days for overseas power projection, which the British Government also want. At a fraction of the cost of their regular counterparts, reserve combat forces are regarded in Australia as highly cost-effective. Why, I repeat, was no appraisal carried out of reserve brigades in this country? From the beginning, it was argued by an almost entirely regular staff—most of whom had no experience of the TA—that the TA should be pushed out of combat into logistic roles.
Each country's circumstances are, of course, different. None the less, we are not alone in the fact that regular defence staff want to plunder the reserves to favour regular forces, under the guise of allegedly objective advice to Ministers. Many regular officers, serving and retired, disagree with the advice of that small group of staff officers.
In America, Congress unearthed the details, which had been concealed by the Pentagon, of the exhaustive trials that had taken place in 1992, showing that the performance of the National Guard armoured infantry battalions was very close to that of their regular counterparts. American Ministers recently overruled their chiefs of staff to enhance two National Guard divisions for short notice power projection abroad.
It would be very sad if MOD Ministers were to accept their advisers' line that proud British reserve units should be seen as gap-fillers to the Regular Army. Territorials are pleased to serve in Bosnia, but that is not why they enlist. They join—as speaker after speaker in another place remarked—to serve with their friends as members of their local units, generously preparing to serve Britain in the next major conflict.
The Minister for the Armed Forces knows that I have the highest respect for him. When I was a rebellious Government Back Bencher, he and I joined forces more than once. I ask him and the Secretary of State to ask themselves, and to press their regular staff officers and
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ask, why does an up-to-date role for reservists in America and Australia mean combat brigades of reserve troops, while in Britain it means driving trucks for the regular Army?
8.59 pm
Mr. Hilton Dawson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the brief opportunity to take part in what has been a restrained and serious debate on a serious subject. We have had much discussion across the Floor of the House about the Territorial Army's role. A person from Lancaster does not need to hear many lectures on the Territorial Army's importance to the well-being of the United Kingdom. People in Lancaster were angered and demoralised by a previous Government who made regular cuts but failed to review roles, and who stretched vital defence responsibilities more tightly over decreasing resources.
In Lancaster, we are very proud of the Territorial Army. Lancaster is the home of the fourth battalion of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment. We are steeped in history. We have had a volunteer force in Lancaster since Napoleonic times. In the two world wars this century, three Victoria Crosses, six Military Medals and two Distinguished Conduct Medals were awarded to Territorial Force/Territorial Army soldiers of the King's Own.
However—despite the excellence of the King's Own Royal Regiment museum—we do not live in the past. I won the most recent general election in Lancaster openly and explicitly on a platform that emphasised the need for a strategic defence review to provide for effective defence, led by foreign policy to react speedily to events, to co-operate with allied forces and with the United Nations.
Despite all the worries about the future of the Territorial Army, I really hope—indeed, I think—that the TA has nothing to fear from the challenges of modernisation, from the demands of new tasks and from the requirements to take on new skills and to respond quickly and flexibly as a vital part of a coherent, properly resourced defence force.
The fourth battalion of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment does not live in the past. It is a substantial force of some 422 soldiers, who occupy a new, purpose-designed headquarters, which was also a very effective base for the local Army cadet force. In recent years, the number of women serving in the TA in Lancaster has doubled. A few weeks ago, on 27 April, 23 men of the fourth battalion returned from an invaluable six months' service in Bosnia. Ten of those soldiers will be staying on in the Regular Army.
The party that made defence cuts year on year—however Conservative Members might portray it—does not do much service to the bravery and integrity of the Territorial Army when—
Mr. Blunt: What will the hon. Gentleman do if the fourth battalion of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment pays the price for the Government's unwillingness to increase the defence budget to accommodate a TA of 55,000?
Mr. Dawson: It is slightly absurd that such an issue is raised by an official Opposition who made cuts year on year when in government.

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It is essential that in the debate we consider the national interest, strategic defence policy and effective defence policy. I believe that the fine women and men of the Territorial Army will meet the challenges of the future, welcome newly defined roles and responsibilities and serve this country well as a substantial reserve force. We need to ensure that they have an effective future, and I very much hope that Lancaster has a very effective future as a base for a modern Territorial Army. Ultimately, however, the national interest, the strategic interest and the defence interest of the United Kingdom will lead the way, and it is essential that we have a modern, well resourced reserve force to meet the UK's interests.
9.5 pm
Mr. Tony Baldry: In the 1970s and 1980s, while many of the Labour Members and their supporters were attending Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rallies, hundreds of thousands of men and women—among whom I was proud to include myself, having served in the TA for 18 years—were supporting the regular forces and supporting a commitment from a Conservative Government and a commitment through NATO which, in due course, led to the disintegration of the Warsaw pact and the collapse of the Berlin wall. What the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) calls defence cuts were in fact a substantial peace dividend, accumulating because we had shown the determination to ensure that the Warsaw pact would disintegrate and collapse. Significantly, many of those countries now wish to join NATO, and NATO exercises frequently take place in erstwhile Warsaw pact countries.
This is a short debate, and I simply wish to make two or three points. First, for a long time the Regular Army has required the support of the TA in many specific roles. I have the privilege of being honorary colonel of my unit. When all the men and women in my unit are on parade, they manage to muster between them every campaign medal from Aden to the present day, because they have no equivalent in the Regular Army. They are the laundry squadron—not an especially glamorous unit, but the only unit to provide laundry for field hospitals and to provide support for men and women training in them. There are several such units.
I say to the Minister for the Armed Forces, the members of that squadron and all members of the TA fear that the current defence review is Treasury-driven, and they are worried that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) said, the Regular Army will protect its Budget and its back, and has pushed the cuts down to the Territorial Army. Not only will there be cuts in the infantry units, but the specialist units will be rendered inoperable because they will not have enough training days. If we call upon people to carry out specialist tasks, they require sufficient training days for the purpose. Without an allowance of enough training days, commanding officers may be tempted to keep on their books men and women who are less than effective so as to use their training days for others who are effective and efficient.
The Secretary of State talks of re-energising the Territorial Army. I hope that the Minister will ensure that units are given a decent number of training days. It is impossible to provide the regular Army with specialist support on a shoestring.
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Those of us who have been involved with the armed forces must continually repeat that we cannot see into the future. Almost every conflict in which we have been involved has been unforeseeable. If the Regular Army is to have the right support, it will require fully trained men and women—and much of that training will apply to TA general units. It is not possible to train up men and women with good signalling or other military and disciplinary skills in a matter of days—they take time to acquire.
Of course I understand the temptation to say that the threat has disappeared so the needs of the Army have changed. We all recognise that they have—but who would have envisaged UK troops staying in Bosnia for as long as they have? We are, after all, a permanent member of the Security Council, and there is always the temptation, or the need, to punch above our weight in the world and to send troops to parts of it where we never imagined they might be needed.
Only recently, we debated in the House whether to send troops to Albania. Had we done so, among their number would have been many members of the Territorial Army. If the Government chip away at the backbone of the TA to such an extent that it can no longer provide generalist units to serve overseas in support of regular units, they will undermine the effectiveness not just of the TA, but of the Regular Army, too.
Ms Squire: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baldry: I was about to conclude, and many other Members are waiting to speak.
When considering the defence review the Government will appreciate, I hope, that this is not just a matter—those of us who have been Ministers understand the financial pressures—of taking a budget and wondering how to shoehorn the TA into what the Treasury has allowed. The Territorial Army is a priceless asset, and we destroy it at our peril. It is based on a culture of tradition and discipline, passed on from generation to generation, from sergeant major to gunner. Once destroyed, that culture can never be rebuilt. By reducing the TA, the Government will damage the whole of our armed forces. I hope very much that they will think again.
9.11 pm
Ms Rachel Squire: I agree with the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) that the Territorial Army and our reserve forces are a priceless asset. I would certainly not support the Government's strategic defence review and examination of the future role of those reserve forces if they thought otherwise. It is, however, rather bizarre to hear Conservative Members arguing that the TA should not just be kept at its present size but enlarged, on the ground that we cannot foresee future conflicts. After all, it was the Conservative Government who cut our regular forces by as much as one third, arguing that they were no longer required in the same numbers because of the end of the cold war. There seems to be a contradiction there.
I should like to make my points in the spirit of those of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), who said that we should debate the issue in an atmosphere of mutual recognition of our commitment to, and admiration for, the TA and the

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reserve forces. I would welcome more time for such debates. I support the comments about their key role in the community and their educational role.
Although I have had limited contact with the Territorial Army in its Dunfermline and West Fife area, I have listened with keen interest to the contributions of other hon. Members, and I have been closely involved with the reserve forces of the Navy and the Air Force. I should declare an interest with respect to the Maritime Volunteer Reserve Service, which was formed as a result of the previous Government ending the Royal Naval Auxiliary Reserve. I am well aware of the negative emotions that that produced.
Our reserve forces are invaluable and should be given an enhanced role in the future defence of the country. We live in an unpredictable world, and we must recognise the changed nature of conflict. I was interested to read an article in the RUSI Journal—the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies—by Brigadier Richard Holmes, the director of reserve forces and cadets. He states:
"In place of quantifiable threats we have more elusive risks. In place of a war of necessity, we have the prospect of wars of choice, where the decision to intervene—and, no less important, at what level and for what duration to intervene—is seldom likely to be simple."
That encapsulates the changed nature of the defence and security environment, the importance of the strategic defence review and the need to consider the future role of both regular and reserve forces.
Our reserve forces must not be allowed to feel that their role is being downgraded or, as was said by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup and others, that they are being used to fill the gaps in the role that should be played by our regular forces.
There are three aspects worthy of our consideration, and I support the approach to them taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces. The first is the increased need for rapid reaction. We require a substantial, highly trained and well-equipped force that can respond quickly. The training of our regular and reserve forces is crucial for them to fulfil that role.
The second aspect is recruitment. I have been delighted by the success of the Army recruitment centre in my constituency in attracting more young people into the armed forces, in line with our new deal initiative, and in providing the initial gateway training that transforms those people's lives and ensures that they can meet the standard. The reserve forces must work in tandem with the regular forces, but we need to be clear about the balance between quality and quantity.
The third aspect concerns the regular forces' need for greater logistical and technical support. The reserves could play a role in that area. We must build up the defence medical services, which I think all hon. Members will agree were reduced drastically beyond the level necessary to provide vital back-up in the field of conflict.
I am well aware that other hon. Members wish to participate in the debate. I support the Government in their review because I think that it will enhance the role and the reputation of our reserve forces. We have an opportunity to show the Territorial Army that we recognise its value and that we are determined that it shall continue to make a vital contribution to the defence of
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this country. To do that, we must include the Territorial Army in the strategic defence review, and we must work with the Territorial Army to strengthen, develop and modernise its role.
9.20 pm
Mr. Keith Simpson: Virtually every hon. Member who has spoken tonight has said that the Territorial Army is very important in terms of the operational effectiveness of our armed forces, the role that the Territorial Army plays in linking with civil society and its general social support role. That is not the area of disagreement. The Government's amendment argues that the Territorial Army must be seen as
"relevant and even more usable reserve forces to help support Britain's foreign and security policies."
If we are to examine the Territorial Army, we must return to those basic issues. I am sorry that I must reiterate the point, but we still do not know what the foreign policy baseline is. The Government have failed to provide that information. Until we know what the baseline is, we have no idea what our security policy is.
I agree with the Secretary of State and other hon. Members who said that the Territorial Army must not be preserved in aspic: it must change and be made relevant. We do not disagree about that. The problem is that the Opposition believe the Territorial Army will be squeezed to fund other areas of the armed forces because of the constraints on the defence budget. The strategic defence review has still not been published—and I do not think it will be published until July. There is no more money available.
Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), I do not necessarily blame those staff officers in the Regular Army who, upon being faced with having to provide extra combat support for the Regular Army under the general framework of the strategic defence review and upon being told that there is no more money, have logically looked to the Territorial Army to find those cuts. I suspect that the Secretary of State's speech has cast great gloom over many men and women who serve in our infantry and armoured corps Territorial Army units. They realise that there must be changes and reductions, but they believe that they will occur because the defence review is ultimately Treasury-driven.
Several hon. Members have stressed that if the combat capability of the Territorial Army infantry and armoured corps falls below a certain critical mass, it will not be able to cope with the sorts of unexpected emergencies that have arisen all too often in the past. My former colleague and old friend Brigadier Richard Holmes, the director of reserve forces and cadets, has been quoted several times tonight—and who am I not to do the same? In his Royal United Services Institute lecture on 21 January 1998, he said:
"If there is a need to retain a reserve without commitment as to future employment, one could do worse than hold back some infantry battalions."
I fear that the strategic defence review may be one cut too many for the TA. I fear that it will consist of individuals and specialist units who will provide a great deal of support for our Regular Army, but will not be able to reconstitute our armed forces in response to a major national emergency. That could be the result of a cut too many for the TA.

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I declare an interest in that I am an honorary colonel of the Royal Military Police TA, which comprises 1,100 men and women. Many have served in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. I am conscious while wearing that hat, and as a constituency Member, of the role carried out by the TA centres, many of which are threatened with being cut. If these centres are cut, along with the cadets, the Ministry of Defence will be cutting off its nose to spite its face.
In Norfolk alone, about 50 regular soldiers every year come from the TA and the cadets. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support the Opposition's constructive motion. I fear that the cuts proposed for the TA are based not on modernising it and preparing it for new operational roles but on providing the necessary money to fund the Regular Army for its new commitments following the strategic defence review.
9.25 pm
Ms Dari Taylor: Much of the debate centres on the competence of the Territorial Army and reservists generally and on their relevance as a modern-day fighting force. It is often said—sometimes, I am sad to say, in the House and often among the public—that the volunteers represent a fighting force of the past. It is said that they are more to do with keeping retired soldiers busy than with providing an active soldier force. I find that offensive, although I am not a reservist and I am not a member of the TA. However, I have seen them at work and I acknowledge their commitment. I find it offensive when people make casual and cutting comments about the abilities of members of the TA and reservists generally.
There is a clear belief that modern warfare is not warfare for reservists. It is felt that we need rapid reactionary forces and that the reservists do not form part of that concept. I see no evidence of that. It is felt also that the reservists are not part of high-tech surveillance. The fact is that many people move from the outside world of high-tech to give the Army information and techniques that it does not have. Accordingly, there is no evidence that reservists are not part of high-tech surveillance.
There is a belief that the infantry is a highly trained team-based war machine of which reservists cannot be part. I see no evidence of that. Surely Bosnia especially told us that there is no evidence of that.
Many of our experts talk about the future of warfare, and somewhere we seem to be falling between the potential for guerrilla war on the one hand and high-tech surveillance on the other. There is the notion that perhaps we are moving towards casualty-less war. Surely recent evidence tells us that that is not the case. Bosnia, especially, tells us that.
I have seen the British Army at work in Bosnia. It was made up of regulars and reservists. There was no differentiation. No one knew who was what. Everyone was working together as a team, and an extremely effective one. There was an incredible volunteer organisation. I am speaking of people who gave their time and commitment. They gave Bosnians—both Serbs and Muslims—a belief that they had a future. I saw our reservists in a war-torn, frightening country. Houses and
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gardens were ribboned off because they were mined. Blocks of flats were no more than shells, and hospitals, schools and homes were rubble.
To see our reservists working there gave me a sense of pride. One cannot pretend about that sense of pride; one looks at them and knows that they represent the best of Great Britain in the Army. They were committed, concerned and determined, and there was no differentiation between reservists and regulars. I would hate to believe that we will start to make that differentiation.
My honourable colleague, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), is right: the Ministry of Defence has many people—experts, generals and others with a history in the armed forces—who blind it to the quality of the reserve forces in Great Britain and to the fact that those people give so much more than simply the time in which we see them perform. Their quality is their professionalism in so many different spheres.
I should have loved the opportunity to speak for longer, but I am being told to wind up. I should like to have said how valuable the reservists are in my community. In the north of England, more than 4,000 youngsters are involved, and it is all down to the TA. I should hate to see them denied a sense of pride in their regiments and squadrons. They work within the community, they raise funds and they have fun, which is everything that we want youngsters to do. The reserve forces must be sustained and built on. They have a good future.
The Secretary of State made a clear statement that the TA has a future. It is now up to us to keep reminding him that we want a commitment in terms of the reservists' value and tremendous future. I am sure that he will say that they can face new challenges and are up to those new challenges. I am sure that we shall see an expanded reserve force, not a contracted one.
9.31 pm
Mr. David Maclean: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), because her central thesis was right. If she discovered in Bosnia that members of the Territorial Army were giving excellent service and were every bit as good as the Regular Army in their support roles of driving HGVs and providing a service in the Royal Logistic Corps and the Royal Engineers, she is absolutely right to conclude that members of the Territorial Army infantry units can give the same valuable service to the Regular Army infantry battalions if they are trained to do the job.
The Ministry of Defence used to consider the TA battalions to be an invaluable part of the infantry fighting forces. I was proud to serve in the 51st Highland Volunteers. I could probably take the Minister back to a particular part of Germany and show him the piece of ground that my platoon was allocated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I could show him the trench that had been planned for me, as platoon commander—not 50 miles behind the line or back in the KP, but on the front line—as part of a battalion committed to 1st BR Corps. We were committed on the expectation that, if the enemy forces came across, we would be wiped out within the first 12 hours, along with all the regulars.
If we could train for a combat infantry role then, surely we can now train for a combat infantry role in the new, changed circumstances. The Secretary of State seemed to

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say that, as so many of our TA battalions now play a home defence role, and there is no real home defence role for them to play, they must either be scrapped or we must boost the support role of TA battalions and have more HGV drivers and Royal Logistic Corps people.
A few years ago—before the Berlin wall fell and we had the peace dividend—the bulk of our territorial infantry was committed to Germany and front-line forces. The Minister is a reasonable man. I gave him a standing ovation when he performed admirably at the annual dinner of the London Scottish a couple of years ago. I shall remind him what he said there.
We used to have that combat role, and we can have it again. We cannot have a viable TA made up only of support troops, although Welsh Members, who argued for their engineering battalions, should look at the history of the Royal Engineers, especially those engineers from Wales who were caught up at Rorke's drift. They thought that they were engineers first, but they were soldiers first and engineers second. Every person serving in the Army should be a solider first and a specialist second.
There is scope to maintain the current level of TA infantry. I should not regard it as strengthening and enhancing the role of the TA if the number of infantry were cut and the number of HGV drivers increased. I know the reserve forces and I apologise, through the Minister, to the general in charge of recruiting: I have not sent back my yellow form yet, because I could not find the right boxes to tick when asked for my specialist skills. I am tempted to take up my HGV course, because then I would have a relevant skill that the TA might need. It should not be that way. There is still a need for infantry soldiers, and I look forward to the Minister honouring the commitments that he made at that wonderful London Jocks dinner.
9.35 pm
Mr. Robert Key: It was always intended that the debate would be constructive, and so it has proved. The Secretary of State gave little away in his opening speech, except some rather disturbing pointers of which we shall hear more anon. He said that the strategic defence review would strengthen the TA and used the words "relevant", "usable", "capable", "effective" and "better integrated". We all, of course, agree with that. He also said, however, that numbers were not the only or even the main issue. We could probably agree with that proposition, but we do not know enough about it to know what it means.
The Secretary of State mentioned cuts to the TA under the previous Administration. He realised that there were bound to be cuts in the defence budget—that is true—but the Labour party in those days wanted even bigger cuts to the post-cold-war defence budget. That seems conveniently to have been forgotten, as history has been rewritten.
It was a pleasure to listen to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), the Father of the House, who is my constituent when he is not in his constituency. He has a feel for the history of our nation and our communities and for the TA. We have always acknowledged his deep knowledge, which, fortunately, has not been shared by successive generations: because of the sacrifice made by his generation, they have not had to engage in warfare on the
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same scale as his generation did. We acknowledge his wise words, and I agree with him that the TA should be a complete social organisation, not a bunch of gap-fillers.
As ever, I listened with pleasure to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers): his was a loyal speech from an old soldier. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) made a good speech, in which he said that the White Paper should by now have been published. Of course it should; it should have been published when it was promised—months ago. He also accurately said that the strategic defence review is in the hands of the Treasury; of course it is, even though we are told that the consultation is still going on. He was also right to draw attention to the Army cadets. We shall welcome his support in the Lobby.
The hon. Members for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards), for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) and for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire) made sincere speeches, but my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) made an exceptional speech, as one would expect from an hon. Member who has been unstinting in his support for the TA and is recognised for the depth of his knowledge on the subject. His speech was cogent, succinct and pithy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), who is honorary colonel of a TA regiment, was right to say that we cannot foresee the future and must remember the lessons of the past. He gave us an understanding of and an insight into the history and traditions of military activity, which are a feature in families with members of the TA, often generation after generation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) made the crucial point that the foreign policy baselines remain secret. I shall return to that. He also said that the Territorial Army must not be frozen in aspic. None of us wishes to see that.
Ministers seemed to say that they do not listen carefully to their advisers. I know that a senior regular infantry officer offered advice and said, "I believe that there is logic in discussing the increased use of TA infantry in innovative ways." We have not heard much of that in the debate. The hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) graced the debate with wise words, and we look forward to hearing from her again soon on the subject.
It has been widely reported that last week, when the Foreign Secretary was in the eye of the storm over Sierra Leone, Defence Ministers were boasting that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had 10 times as many parliamentary questions to answer about the affair as the Ministry of Defence. Rather than boasting, they should have asked themselves, "What is the cause of that?" One reason for fewer questions to Defence Ministers is that hon. Members know that it is not worth asking questions, because Ministers will not give answers. Apparently, they have few friends in the Cabinet. They are embarrassed, and they have much to be embarrassed about.
The big promise of a six-month defence review has been so seriously broken that Defence Ministers have a credibility problem. They should be embarrassed every time they repeat their mantra that the strategic defence review is the most open policy-making process and the widest consultation exercise that has ever been held by the Ministry of Defence. It is no such thing. They know that people rumbled them a long time ago. The strategic defence review was an extraordinary consultation exercise. One cannot consult unless one starts with some

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givens. We have not been given any foreign policy guidelines. A couple of speeches skating round the Foreign Secretary's pantomime on ice are about as credible as a Foreign Office Minister's policy on Sierra Leone.
We were not given any guidelines on the amount in the kitty for defence. The review has spawned a small industry among academics and journalists, who have been delighted to oblige with a period of free thinking and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get their dreams and prejudices off their chests and on to the desks of Ministry of Defence officials and, with luck, on to the desks and perhaps into the red boxes of a Defence Minister or two. The strategic defence review that matters is the one that is carried out within the Ministry of Defence itself, and that has been entirely different.
As usual, all three services responded magnificently to the challenge and completed their input on schedule. As usual, the internal strategic defence review that was completed by the military and the Ministry of Defence has been clinical and merciless. Unlike the rest of us, they knew the baselines and the arithmetic. They considered every option that they were asked to consider. They were told, "Rule out any increase in the TA budget or in TA strength, but consider all other options from a baseline of about 20,000 and float upwards to an irreducible minimum, viable figure of about 40,000." The professionals have had their say, and now it is a political issue for Ministers to handle.
The Government's proposals for the TA are being subjected to scrutiny by hon. Members who face the reality of ministerial dreams. In recent weeks, an increasingly bad-tempered Minister for the Armed Forces has criticised the TA for unfairly arguing for its existence. That is unfair, because the process was started by Ministers. This afternoon, the Minister for the Armed Forces described this debate as a cheap publicity stunt. It is far from that.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): I did not say that.
Mr. Key: The Minister will see it in Hansard in the morning.
Dr. Reid: I did not refer to this debate as a cheap publicity stunt. I shall stand corrected if I did. [Interruption.] I shall check it in Hansard, and if the hon. Gentleman is wrong, I take it that he will apologise.
Mr. Key: Of course. Similarly, I hope that, if the Minister is wrong, he will apologise to the House. He will find that I was absolutely right.
Much has been said about the importance of the territorials' footprint. Dots on a map of the UK representing military presence are getting fewer every year. Largely because of the Northern Ireland situation, there are fewer uniforms on our streets. That is likely to be the case for many years, however much we all hope that the Northern Ireland settlement will hold after Friday's referendum. When I was a child in Salisbury in the 1950s, it was very much a garrison town. Military uniforms were the norm, not the exception. These days,
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service men and women are more likely to go to work in civvies and, if they wear uniforms, they will be under a mac. Less than 2 per cent. of the adult male population has any direct contact with the military.
I note the total absence tonight of the Scottish National party, yet again. As usual in defence debates, it is absent.
Mr. Andrew Welsh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Key: Oh. One has turned up. I certainly will not give way. The hon. Gentleman has the gall to turn up at the last minute and to expect me to give way when he has not been here.
Mr. Welsh rose—
Mr. Key: Well, as I am such a nice chap, I give way.
Mr. Welsh: I have not just arrived; I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech. He got it wrong with me. I hope that he has not similarly got it wrong with the Minister for the Armed Forces. He should get his facts correct.
Mr. Key: Is that the sum total of the hon. Gentleman's contribution on behalf of the Scottish National party? He has been watching the television set in his room, instead of participating in the debate.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House paid tribute to the role of cadets. The cadet force is a vital and vibrant part of our community. I was in the cadet force a very long time ago. I rose to the dizzy heights of company sergeant major in the Combined Cadet Force. For many people, it was, of course, drudgery, but for most of us it was a challenge that we enjoyed.
Almost 40 per cent. of young men in my year at school went into the services. Many of them have had distinguished military careers. Commanders of nuclear submarines and the commander of the Desert Rats in the Gulf war, Paddy Cordingley, were among my friends who joined the CCF with me. Fifty-six per cent. of warrant officers and regimental sergeant majors started as cadets.
Often, cadets eke out their existence under the shadow of a TA unit. They use its buildings and equipment. They learn skills from TA professionals. We must be sure that those cadets continue.
There are many ways in which one could define viability for the TA. I must mention the whole question of a proper promotion structure within the TA. If the TA shrinks, so do promotion opportunities. We should also not forget that the regulars and the TA have a long history of rivalry. That rivalry is, I am sure, reducing: I think that we have seen in Bosnia that the old rivalries are no longer treated in the way they were. The rivalries were not always a happy thing to see.
When the Conservative Government reduced overall force levels, it was a clear and logical response to the end of the cold war. The figures were replicated throughout NATO, and the Ministry of Defence operated in its usual clinical and merciless style. The territorials were reduced as much as anyone else. They understood that. For the past three years, their position has stabilised, and we have solid, sensible and successful TA units.

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The Secretary of State asked whether we would agree with him tonight. The whole point is that there is not enough yet to agree with. The strongest message that we have received from him is that the combat role of the TA as formed units is over. If that is true, it is against much of the advice that he has received from his Regular Army professionals. No wonder the Labour party will not be voting for our motion.
I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to illustrate their support for the future of the Territorial Army and to express their confidence in that priceless national asset by voting for our motion. Let us give the Government the opportunity to think afresh about the future of the Territorial Army.
9.48 pm
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): I think that we all expected a lively and well-informed debate, and, by and large, we have not been disappointed. I certainly have not been disappointed with the public intimation from the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) that, as he is not receiving satisfactory answers, he will no longer table parliamentary questions. That was the best news that I heard tonight.
Like many hon. Members here, I have a Territorial Army and a cadets movement in my constituency, and I want to preserve, to fortify and to enhance the TA. I want to give it a future that is not just a monument to the past, but where it has a clear, recognisable, usable and relevant role. Indeed, it is more so than in the past.
I want first to refer to the speech of the Father of the House, the right hon.—indeed, tonight I would say right hon. and gallant—Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). He was originally a gunner, was a major by 1945 and, between 1947 and 1951, he was commander of 2nd Regiment of the Honourable Artillery Company. He speaks with seriousness, gravity and import in these affairs. I understand that he was mentioned in dispatches, so he has practical as well as theoretical knowledge.
The right hon. Gentleman said two things that were important. First, he said that we must be careful when viewing the world from our present position, because we cannot do everything. I wholly accept that. Indeed, one of the problems for those who ask why we spend money employing the forces is that it is not so much a question of what the armed forces do, as of explaining to a public, keen to see us play a role in the world, that the armed forces cannot do everything. There is a constant demand upon them. However, because we cannot do everything does not mean that we should not do what we can to discharge our responsibilities in the world, both as a citizen of the world in defending our rights and discharging our responsibilities, and as a member of the permanent five of the Security Council.
The point that the right hon. Gentleman made about the Territorial Army is that we do not want it to be a stopgap; we do not want it to be used merely to fill the gaps in the Regular Army. That accords with what the Government believe. If Opposition Members would stop for a minute and listen to what we are proposing, they would understand that we are proposing a radical enhancement of the Territorial Army.
The reality is that, over the past 50 years since the right hon. Gentleman served in the armed forces, the TA has been used in a voluntary capacity, either as individuals or
698
as larger units, to fill gaps in the regular forces. We have been told tonight about the unpredictability of the world. Many hon. Members asked who could have foreseen the Falklands, the Gulf, Malaysia or Cyprus. What they did not point out was that no Territorial Army units were called up in the Falklands, the Gulf, Malaysia or Cyprus. In other words, for many years we have not been able to call up the Territorial Army, whatever the circumstances, unless it were for a major full-scale war with Russia. Does anyone genuinely believe that we are about to face a major full-scale war with Russia?
Mr. Keith Simpson: The legislation was changed.
Dr. Reid: The legislation was indeed changed, but thus far no Government have stated their intention to make the Territorial Army so usable, so relevant and so enhanced in its role in the British defence forces that the threshold would be lowered and the Territorial Army called up. That is our radical proposal for bringing the Territorial Army into the mainstream of our defence forces and enhancing its role in a way that has not been done in the past half century.
Mr. Rogers: I am sorry to be unhelpful to my hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "As ever."] No, not as ever. Surely the point of the Territorial Army and its relationship with the regular forces is that, when our regular forces have to be deployed abroad, the role of the territorials is upgraded and they act as our home forces.
Dr. Reid: I take my hon. Friend's point. The essential point that I am making tonight is that, in a strategic defence review, not only do we want to derive from our foreign policy a configuration that is relevant, but we want the units within that defence posture to be relevant. It so happens that our proposals on the Territorial Army are relevant.
I stand second to no one in my respect for the Territorial Army, and would never have called today's debate "a cheap publicity stunt". I told the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) that, in 10 months, all we have had from the Opposition is three debates on the TA, because they think that cheap popularity is to be gained in having such debates. Will the hon. Gentleman now apologise, as he promised?
Mr. Key: Yes, of course—I unreservedly apologise. However, I hope that the Minister will get the message that, if he uses such words unwisely, it will do neither the TA nor his own position any credit.
Dr. Reid: Nothing is more demeaning than a grudging apology when someone is proved wrong.
I should like to deal with some of the points that have been made in this debate. As for cheap popularity, I realise that an argument can be made for taking the low road. An argument can be made for saying: "Fifteen thousand, 10,000 or 5,000 people will possibly be without a job. Regardless of the strategic merits, that is their Achilles heel, and we will run the popularity con." However, if we do not have the courage to configure our defence forces to meet today's threat and security needs—and to find the money to supply the defence medical

699
services, the second line of logistics and heavy lift—we shall be putting our soldiers lives at risk, which is something that the Government are not prepared to do.
Mr. Blunt: The real problem is that the Government are proposing to cut 16,000 people from the Territorial Army. In subsequent years, the problem will be magnified as the number of people in the United Kingdom without military experience increases. That is the strategic problem.
Dr. Reid: The hon. Gentleman was the special adviser to a Secretary of State who cut 35,000 regulars from the British Army. [Interruption.] Today, he has the audacity to come here—
Mr. Blunt: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister has misled the House. Will you advise me on how he can put the matter right?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. No hon. Gentleman would mislead the House.
Dr. Reid: I will not ask for another grudging withdrawal or apology. However, it seems that the Opposition, not me, are becoming irritable.
At great length, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) told us that he does not know: what the outcome of the review will be; the configuration that we are suggesting; or the roles that, he complained, we are imagining. He was also not aware of the enhancements that we might want to make, and did not have a clue—because we did not outline it—about the footprint. He said that, on the basis of all that knowledge, he will steadfastly vote against our proposals at the end of this debate. His argument was not an entirely convincing one on which to build a case.
Mr. Brazier: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Reid: I have only three minutes left, and the hon. Gentleman has had his opportunity to speak.
We have made it plain that we want to enhance the role of the Territorial Army. We want to make it more relevant, more usable, more modern and more integrated.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: And smaller.
Dr. Reid: We want to raise the Territorial Army's profile and importance—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) will not shout like that in the Chamber.
Dr. Reid: We shall ensure that those adjectives describe the modern Territorial Army. We shall make it more relevant by reducing its outdated home defence role and focusing on a role comprising skilled trades. We shall make it more usable by lowering the call-out threshold, and by ensuring that, for the first time in half a century, we can call the Territorial Army into action when we need
700
it. We shall make it more integrated by making it one combined force of regulars and territorials, rather than separating them. We shall make the TA relevant, usable, integrated and modern. The entire purpose of the strategic defence review has been to produce modern forces for a modern world.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Reid: The Opposition are seething because, year after year, the Treasury led them by the nose. Cuts were proclaimed in advance. The previous Government cut personnel by 32 per cent. and finance by 30 per cent., and they reduced the Territorial Army by 31,000 members, but they still ended up with a force configuration that did not meet the security needs of the day. This Government will not take that road. Our Army, Air Force and Navy, regular and reserves, will be combined in an integrated framework that is coherent beyond any of their expectations.
Mr. James Arbuthnot rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 154, Noes 286.

Division No. 278]

[10 pm

AYES

Allan, Richard

Cran, James

Amess, David

Curry, Rt Hon David

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

Arbuthnot, James

Day, Stephen

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Duncan Smith, lain

Baldry, Tony

Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Ballard, Mrs Jackie

Evans, Nigel

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Faber, David

Bercow, John

Fabricant, Michael

Benesford, Sir Paul

Feam, Ronnie

Blunt, Crispin

Flight, Howard

Body, Sir Richard

Forth, Rt Hon Eric

Boswell, Tim

Foster, Don (Bath)

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Brady, Graham

Gale, Roger

Brake, Tom

Garnier, Edward

Brazier, Julian

Gibb, Nick

Breed, Colin

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Gorrie, Donald

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Gray, James

Bums, Simon

Green, Damian

Burstow, Paul

Greenway, John

Butterfill, John

Grieve, Dominic

Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

Gummer, Rt Hon John

Cash, William

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Chidgey, David

Hammond, Philip

Chope, Christopher

Hancock, Mike

Clappison, James

Hawkins, Nick

Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)

Hayes, John

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Heald, Oliver

Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Collins, Tim

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

Cotter, Brian

Horam, John

701

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Ruffley, David

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Hunter, Andrew

St Aubyn, Nick

Jack, Rt Hon Michael

Salmond, Alex

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Sanders, Adrian

Jenkin, Bernard

Sayeed, Jonathan

Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

Shepherd, Richard

Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys MÖn)

Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

Key, Robert

Smith, Sir Robert (WAb'd'ns)

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Soames, Nicholas

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Spicer, Sir Michael

Kirkwood, Archy

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Steen, Anthony

Lansley, Andrew

Streeter, Gary

Leigh, Edward

Stunell, Andrew

Letwin, Oliver

Swayne, Desmond

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Syms, Robert

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Llwyd, Elfyn

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Luff, Peter

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Tonge, Dr Jenny

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Tredinnick, David

MacKay, Andrew

Tyler, Paul

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Tyrie, Andrew

McLoughlin, Patrick

Walter, Robert

Madel, Sir David

Wardle, Charles

Maples, John

Waterson, Nigel

Mates, Michael

Wells, Bowen

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

Welsh, Andrew

May, Mrs Theresa

Whitney, Sir Raymond

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Whittingdale, John

Moss, Malcolm

Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

Norman, Archie

Wilkinson, John

Ottaway, Richard

Willis, Phil

Page, Richard

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Paice, James

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Paterson, Owen

Woodward, Shaun

Randall, John

Yeo, Tim

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Rendel, David

Robathan, Andrew

Tellers for the Ayes:

Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

Mr. Peter Ainsworth and

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Mr. John M. Taylor.

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Burden, Richard

Ainger, Nick

Burgon, Colin

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Byers, Stephen

Alexander, Douglas

Caborn, Richard

Allen, Graham

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Armstrong, Ms Hilary

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Ashton, Joe

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Atkins, Charlotte

Cann, Jamie

Austin, John

Caplin, Ivor

Banks, Tony

Caton, Martin

Barnes, Harry

Cawsey, Ian

Battle, John

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Bayley, Hugh

Chaytor, David

Beard, Nigel

Church, Ms Judith

Benton, Joe

Clapham, Michael

Berry, Roger

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Betts, Clive

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Blears, Ms Hazel

Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

Blizzard, Bob

Clelland, David

Blunkett, Rt Hon David

Clwyd, Ann

Boateng, Paul

Coaker, Vernon

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Coffey, Ms Ann

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Cohen, Harry

Bradshaw, Ben

Colman, Tony

Brinton, Mrs Helen

Connarty, Michael

Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

Cooper, Yvette

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Browne, Desmond

Corston, Ms Jean

Buck, Ms Karen

Cranston, Ross

702

Crausby, David

Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

Cryer, John (Homchurch)

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

Dalyell, Tam

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

Darvill, Keith

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Jowell, Ms Tessa

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Keeble, Ms Sally

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly)

Kemp, Fraser

Dawson, Hilton

Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

Dismore, Andrew

Khabra, Piara S

Dobbin, Jim

Kidney, David

Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

Kilfoyle, Peter

Doran, Frank

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Drew, David

King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Kingham, Ms Tess

Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

Kumar, Dr Ashok

Edwards, Huw

Lawrence, Ms Jackie

Efford, Clive

Lepper, David

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Leslie, Christopher

Fatchett, Derek

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Field, Rt Hon Frank

Linton, Martin

Fisher, Mark

Livingstone, Ken

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Flint, Caroline

Lock, David

Follett, Barbara

Love, Andrew

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

McAllion, John

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

McAvoy, Thomas

Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

McCabe, Steve

Fyfe, Maria

McCafferty, Ms Chris

Galloway, George

McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)

Gapes, Mike

McDonagh, Siobhain

Gardiner, Barry

McDonnell, John

George, Bruce (Walsall S)

McFall, John

Gerrard, Neil

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Gibson, Dr Ian

McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

Godsiff, Roger

McNulty, Tony

Goggins, Paul

MacShane, Denis

Golding, Mrs Llin

Mactaggart, Fiona

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

McWilliam, John

Grant, Bemie

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Mallaber, Judy

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Grocott, Bruce

Grogan, John

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Hain, Peter

Martlew, Eric

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Maxton, John

Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

Hanson, David

Meale, Alan

Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

Merron, Gillian

Healey, John

Michael, Alun

Hepburn, Stephen

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Heppell, John

Milburn, Alan

Hesford, Stephen

Hill, Keith

Miller, Andrew

Hinchliffe, David

Mitchell, Austin

Hodge, Ms Margaret

Moffatt, Laura

Home Robertson, John

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Hoon, Geoffrey

Moran, Ms Margaret

Hope, Phil

Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

Hopkins, Kelvin

Morley, Elliot

Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

Hoyle, Lindsay

Mudie, George

Hughes, Ms Beveriey (Stretford)

Mullin, Chris

Humble, Mrs Joan

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Hutton, John

Norris, Dan

Iddon, Dr Brian

O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

Illsley, Eric

Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

O'Neill, Martin

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Osborne, Ms Sandra

Jenkins, Brian

Pearson, Ian

Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

Perham, Ms Linda

703

Pickthall, Colin

Squire, Ms Rachel

Pike, Peter L

Steinberg, Gerry

Plaskitt, James

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Polland, Kerry

Stinchcombe, Paul

Pond, Chris

Stoate, Dr Howard

Pope, Greg

Stott, Roger

Pound, Stephen

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

Powell, Sir Raymond

Straw, Rt Hon Jack

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Sutcliffe, Gerry

Primarolo, Dawn

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Purchase, Ken

Quin, Ms Joyce

Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

Quinn, Lawrie

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Radice, Giles

Tipping, Paddy

Rammell, Bill

Todd, Mark

Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

Touhig, Don

Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N)

Trickett, Jon

Robertson, Rt Hon George (Hamilton S)

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Rogers, Allan

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Rooker, Jeff

Vaz, Keith

Rooney, Terry

Ward, Ms Claire

Roy, Frank

White, Brian

Ruddock, Ms Joan

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Wicks, Malcolm

Ryan, Ms Joan

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Safter, Martin

Sarwar, Mohammad

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Savidge, Malcolm

Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

Sawford, Phil

Wills, Michael

Sedgemore, Brian

Winnick, David

Sheerman, Barry

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Wise, Audrey

Singh, Marsha

Wood, Mike

Skinner, Dennis

Woolas, Phil

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

Smith, John (Glamorgan)

Wyatt, Derek

Snape, Peter

Tellers for the Noes:

Soley, Clive

Mr. Kevin Hughes and

Spellar, John

Mr. Jim Dowd.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House supports the Government in its determination to ensure that the United Kingdom has armed forces that are modern, capable, relevant and structured for the new post Cold War strategic realities; considers that the Territorial Army, like the rest of the armed forces, should continue to adapt to these realities; welcomes the valuable role played by the Territorial Army in the wider life of the nation; and is confident that the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review will be capable, relevant and even more usable reserve forces to help support Britain's foreign and security policies.

Territorial Army

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION

    BANKS AND BANKING
    That the draft Cash Ratio Deposits (Value Bands and Ratios) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 27th April, be approved.
    That the draft Bank of England (Information Powers) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 27th April, be approved.—[Mr. Clelland.]
    Question agreed to.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at the sitting on Thursday 21st May, Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Community documents) shall not apply to the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to the Common Agricultural Policy and the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on that Motion not later than 3 hours after their commencement.—[Mr. Clelland.]

  PETITION

    National Health Service (East Kent)
    10.14 pm
    Mr. Julian Brazier: I wish to present a petition, bearing 54,000 signatures, on behalf of people in east Kent who are against the proposed rundown of the Kent and Canterbury hospital. As it is so voluminous, I have brought just a small part of it into the Chamber. I understand that a further 140,000 signatures have been delivered to the offices of East Kent health authority.
    The petition states:
    The petition of the people of East Kent declares that the proposed substantial reduction of NHS services in East Kent conflicts with Government policy.
    The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Health to:

    (i) reject the proposed downgrading of Kent and Canterbury Hospital and the relocation of specialist services outside of East Kent, and

    (ii) support general practitioners and consultants wanting to retain acute services in Thanet, Canterbury and Ashford.

    And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    To lie upon the Table.

Nursery Education
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Clelland.]
10.15 pm
Sir Michael Spicer: This is a problem largely of the Government's own making. It threatens the very existence of nursery education in this country, and it is causing growing consternation and alarm in Worcestershire.
The voucher system was far from perfect, but its introduction was a firm step in the right direction towards parental choice, and it provided an opportunity for radical improvement in the education of very young children. The scheme's abolition for politically motivated and doctrinaire reasons has been disastrous. Local education authorities have taken full control of both provision and regulation of nursery education, and have used their new powers to devastating effect.
In Worcestershire, they have virtually obliterated nursery education for four-year-olds, and much the same can be said of the rest of the country. If the effect were an improvement in the early life of young children, that would be the end of the matter, but the plain fact is that it has been a massively retrograde step.
First, and probably least important, there is a budgetary question. Each year, £1,100 is made available for each child under five. By working 52 weeks a year, and employing nursery-trained teachers, rather than mainstream teachers, nursery schools are able to accommodate that subsidy in their budgets, but the same is not true of mainstream schools. Assuming a teacher-pupil ratio of 15:1—which is twice as high as the permissible ratio in nursery schools—the funding will not cover a teacher, let alone a teacher and an assistant.
Extra funds must therefore be provided by deflecting moneys from the budget allocated for teaching over-fives. Head teachers, especially in counties such as Worcestershire, argue that budgets are already overstretched. Money, however, is not the main issue. Much more important, most of the children whom local authorities are forcing out of nursery schools and into mainstream schools at the age of four are receiving a much lower standard of education.
The schools are not subject to the Children Act 1989, and therefore have no statutory limit on pupil-teacher ratios. Nurseries are compelled to maintain a ratio of 8:1, but schools can apply whatever ratio they think fit. Typically, that results in ratios of between 15 and 20:1. What is more, teachers in schools, although they are much more expensive than nursery teachers, are often not much better qualified to teach really young children. Certainly that is true of the often totally unqualified assistants who work with them.
What is more, as a recent Channel 4 programme vividly illustrated, the structure and environment of the school is often totally inappropriate to tiny children. A body of evidence is even emerging, especially from Scandinavia and Switzerland, that the semi-formality of the teaching of four-year-olds in schools is a severe impediment to their further development.
One does not have to accept entirely the pre-eminence of the theory of learning through play to have a feeling for the force of the argument that children in large establishments
706
can be educationally force-fed prematurely, to their permanent damage. There is a special requirement with the very young to treat the needs of each child individually, which is so much easier in small nursery groups.
The whole problem is compounded by the fact that the regulation of nursery and early education is controlled by local education authorities which, because of present demographic factors resulting in falling rolls, are struggling to attract more children to their schools and thus help their argument for further funding by the taxpayer.
Put bluntly, since this Government took over the schools, the LEAs have been forcing parents to send their four-year-olds to schools. Frankly, it is a scandal. Under the voucher scheme, it has to be said that parents were increasingly persuaded to send their four-year-olds to schools for fear of losing a place for them later, but at least under that scheme they had a choice. Now, they do not have any choice at all. The idea that, in those circumstances, there can be a genuine partnership between nursery schools and LEAs, as the Government seem to pretend, is at best disingenuous and at worst a deception.
In their recently published consultation paper on the regulation of nursery education, the Government are showing some signs of awareness of the problem and the anomalies, which is at least a start. The question is, what is to be done? It seems to me—this is the purpose of raising the matter tonight—that, first, a uniform system of regulation for all nursery education is needed, whether it is provided through the schools, nurseries or play schemes.
It is illogical, to say the least, for the conditions of the Children Act 1989, for instance with respect to teacher ratios, to be applied to nursery schools and not to nursery education within mainstream schools. Also, it is wrong that mainstream schools should be exempt from having to employ properly trained nursery teachers. It is also unacceptable that there should be unspecified cross-subsidisation of nursery teaching within schools from budgets allocated for the teaching of children over five years old.
It is essential that common standards should be regulated independently. At present, social services act as the LEA's agent in most authorities in much of the regulatory process. That role should be handed over in its entirety to an independent regulatory organisation, such as the Office for Standards in Education.
Above all else, what is required is that the Government should throw away their electoral rhetoric and political dogma, and recognise that, if parental choice, which is the only real alternative to control by the LEA, is to be reintroduced, some form of voucher system will have to re-emerge. If that forces the Government to swallow too much pride, perhaps vouchers will have to be given some other name. The Government have not been slow in other areas to rebrand Conservative policies.
The future of little children is what matters. Conservative Members must acknowledge that the voucher scheme had its flaws. Because of loopholes in the Children Act 1989, LEAs could, using often unfair and inaccurate prospectuses, seduce parents to send their four-year-old children to mainstream schools. Parental choice must be reinstated, and nursery schools put on a par with mainstream schools. The Act must be amended so that mainstream schools are compelled to comply with

707
the same regulations that apply to nursery schools—the two must be put on an equal footing. LEAs should also be told that they will not receive extra funding if they deflect into nursery education moneys that have been allocated to mainstream teaching.
The Government should start to think of children first and ideology second—the interests of the two are, in this case, antithetical. The Government should be big enough to admit that, in abolishing the voucher system, they made a mistake. They should introduce an even better voucher scheme than the one that we Conservatives left behind.
10.25 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Estelle Morris): I congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) on raising this important issue. I had thought that the House had reached unanimity in our consideration of early years education. Children, not political point scoring, should be at the centre of the debate. I regret the fact that, in some of his remarks, he reverted to political point scoring, and failed to deal with the debate in which, over the past 12 months, I have been very happy to take part.
Sir Michael Spicer: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Morris: No. I want to make progress, although I may have time to give way later.
Let us consider a few facts. I accept that Worcester changed its admission arrangements in September 1997 to admit younger children. The notion that it decided to do so on 2 May after the election of a Labour Government is surely misplaced. The admission arrangements were changed as a direct result of the Conservative Government's nursery voucher scheme, which had an in-built incentive for local authorities to take young children into schools.
The money to fund the voucher scheme—bureaucracy and all—had come from local authorities in the first place. On the whole, it had come from local authorities that had done well by young children in providing early years education. To ensure that that money returned to the maintained sector, they had to compete for kids—money followed four-year-olds. I fail to see why Conservatives Members are surprised that the organisations that wanted to provide early education competed in the market that the Conservative Government created.
We inherited a situation in which, because of the nursery voucher system, local authorities throughout the country were changing admission dates, so that they could take younger and younger children into sometimes inappropriate placings. We cannot be held responsible for that; we can be held responsible only for what we have done in the 12 months since the general election.
Sir Michael Spicer: The hon. Lady said that I had been making political points, but the Labour party made massive political points about the voucher scheme during the general election—they conducted a major campaign on it. I accept that the scheme was flawed, as I have said, but at least it allowed for parental choice. Because LEAs
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now control the system, parents are compelled to send their children to LEA schools. That is the fundamental difference, as I hope the Government understand.
Ms Morris: If that was the case, I would share the hon. Gentleman's concerns. All our actions show that I have not spent the past 12 months trying to squeeze out good private or voluntary sector providers.
Among the things that we have done with the money saved by the abolition of the nursery voucher scheme is to help to meet the costs of seven early excellence centres that we have opened—many in partnership with the voluntary sector. Playgroups contribute to those centres. We have been able to use money that was tied up in bureaucracy to develop EECs. No hon. Member in any part of the House has argued that early excellence centres, which are beacons of excellence in early years education and which show the way in integrating child care, early years education, working with families, the family literacy scheme and support for families, are not a good way forward.
Early years development partnerships have replaced nursery voucher schemes. The new Worcestershire unitary authority has produced an excellent scheme, and the chair of the Worcestershire early years development partnership, Professor Christine Pascal, is one of the best known people in the field of early years education. I assure the hon. Member for West Worcestershire that every provider that received money from the public purse for educating four-year-olds under the nursery voucher scheme has had the opportunity to be part of an early years development partnership, and that many—if not all—have taken that opportunity.
Mr. John Hayes: Will the Minister give way?
Ms Morris: Not yet; I shall finish this point.
In every instance where a member of the private or voluntary sector has not transferred from being a provider under the voucher scheme to being a provider under the partnership scheme, my Department has specifically gone to them and found out why they have withdrawn. Some have withdrawn because they do not want to aim at the desirable learning outcomes; some have not wanted to participate because they did not especially enjoy the experience under early years vouchers; but no provider has told my Department, "We are not part of the partnership scheme, because we have not been made welcome."
We have a choice. Do we want a system that brings those providers together on the basis of market economics, in which they will compete with one another and drive one another out of the market, as happened under the voucher scheme, or do we want to bring those providers together in partnership, in the interests of children and parents? We have tried to do the latter.
However, the key point, from the viewpoint of the hon. Member for West Worcestershire, is that the choice that existed under the voucher scheme—the same providers, from all sectors, as well as new providers from the voluntary and private sectors—is still available in partnerships. It is necessary to co-ordinate those partnerships; the administration and co-ordination are done by a local authority.

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However, in the hon. Gentleman's local authority, Worcestershire, the partnership is not chaired by the chair of the education committee or by a local authority official, but by a woman whose standing in early years education is unparalleled in the country. Her standing is widely respected, and I defy the hon. Gentleman to find anyone who knows about early years education and lives in his constituency who does not accept that the leadership of his local partnership is in good hands, and is committed to making the partnership cohesive.
Mr. Hayes: The Minister speaks with her usual clarity and honesty, but, as private sector playgroups are closing by the day and by the week, will she give us some feel for the numbers that have closed since she came to office? If partnerships are so important, why did Labour local education authorities, of one of which I was a member for many years, fare so badly at providing such partnerships, when their discretionary powers gave them a perfect opportunity and right to do so?
Ms Morris: Far too many playgroups are closing, but the hon. Gentleman should not pretend that that did not happen until 2 May 1997. Playgroups closed last year because of the nursery voucher system. The hon. Gentleman should read the material sent out by the Pre-School Learning Alliance. It does not pretend that the closure of playgroups did not hit the nation until the past 12 months. The divisive, competitive nursery voucher system began the closure of playgroups.
The hon. Gentleman should remember that the provision that started in September 1997 was planned before the general election, and that anything that happened in the year starting in 1997 in terms of kids in settings was planned well before the general election. I cannot see how hon. Gentlemen can fail to draw the conclusion that that was a direct result of the system that the Conservatives had in place.
I am not happy that playgroups are still closing; neither is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. That is why, only last week in a speech to the Pre-School Learning Alliance, he announced that a further £500,000 would be provided to stop good intermediate stage playgroups closing. We need those playgroups for the expansion in three-year-old education that we want, and for the work we want to do to extend child care and wrap-around provision. To prevent their being squeezed out of the market, we will be talking to partnerships and the PLA to see how best to ensure that they are not.
I will now try to reassure the hon. Member for West Worcestershire in several respects. He is right, for instance, about the mess of regulations. What is fair for one should be fair for another: they are the same kids, no matter whether they are in the private, the voluntary or the maintained sector. The system has grown up over the years in patchwork fashion, and nobody has ever taken it by the scruff of the neck to see what could be made of it.
We deserve some credit for having published, some months ago, a discussion document that honestly faced up to the difficult issues to do with regulating child care and early years education. The two are not the same: the hours are different, the expectations of parents are different, the training of the professionals is different. What might be suitable in terms of teacher/pupil ratios for two-year-olds might not be for a four-year-old.
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To be generous to our predecessors, I suspect that they did not tackle this area because it is so complex. We, however, have done it. We have asked the right questions; and I will take the hon. Gentleman's comments this evening, if he so agrees, as a response to the consultation that we have launched. I shall ensure that they are incorporated in the relevant document. The hon. Gentleman was also right to question the wisdom of four-year-olds learning in classes of 30, given that, in another setting, they might be in smaller groups.
I congratulate the partnership in Worcestershire on taking steps to ensure that the ratio in its reception classes will be 1:15. We have not made Worcestershire do that: it is ahead of the game. I also congratulate the county on the partnership's innovative idea of creating a central pool of supply staff, so that teachers from all sectors—private, maintained and voluntary—can undertake training. Those are the actions of a group of people, led by a good chair, who are committed to making partnership work.
As for inspection, qualifications, initial teacher training for working with three, four, five, six, seven and eight-year-olds, and the curriculum—they all need examining. I will say, however, that in all those areas we have taken action. We are reviewing the qualifications with a view to making them more coherent. We are reviewing desirable learning outcomes. We are reviewing the inspection framework. We want to bring together the inspection of child care and of early years education.
I also take seriously the hon. Gentleman's point about the necessity for child protection of the utmost rigour. I shall make that point forcefully in the consultation process, in the cause of enhancing rigorous child care and early years education inspection.
Sir Michael Spicer: The review is good news, and I am glad that the hon. Lady has listened to the arguments and responded accordingly. However, since there was a change in regime, education for four-year-olds in nursery schools has been obliterated in Worcestershire and, as I understand it, virtually throughout the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) raised the serious matter of playgroups closing, but the situation is worse than that: for four-year-olds, nursery school education has ceased to exist. The fear is that, with all the problems, which the Minister has shown she understands, nursery school education will be wiped out entirely, even for three-year-olds. That is the real worry. If the Minister has grasped that point tonight—she may have grasped it before—that will be a tremendous achievement.
Ms Morris: May I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I do not envisage three-year-olds in reception classes? That does not go on, as far as I know, and if it came to my attention that it was happening, it would be a matter of great concern.
We have taken action this year to provide places for four-year-olds. Now we want targets to be set so that we can provide places for three-year-olds. In the provision for three-year-olds, where reception classes cannot cater for kids, we will need the wealth of experience that exists in the maintained sector. There is good maintained nursery provision for three and four-year-olds. Not all

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kids walking through a school gate are going into a reception class at three and four. Some are going into a properly staffed, good-quality, rigorous nursery. We should not do down the maintained sector.
Because we realise that we will need the strengths of all the sectors to extend provision for three-year-olds, we have secured partnerships. That is why we provided the £500,000 of hang-on money last week to keep the playgroups going.
I imagine that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire and I will never agree on the reasons why, in September 1997, more four-year-olds went into reception classes than previously. I defy him to find any local authority that changed its admission age in the last two months of the summer term. Time would have been needed, to notify staff, to offer places, to take appeals and to allow parents to buy uniforms for their children and meet the infant class teacher. That does not happen in a six-week half-term.
Where the decision was made, as in Worcestershire, to change the starting point to four-year-olds rather than five-year-olds, it was made before 1 May last year. That is the legacy we inherited, and the turn-around that we have tried to achieve. We have not managed to do it within one year, but we have managed to give a clear signal to those in the field, but most of all to parents, that we are deadly serious about top-quality education for children.
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That is the best start that we can give a youngster. Children are entitled to a proper setting, a curriculum that is appropriate to their needs, and staff who are properly trained to give them a good start. Families have a right to expect that their children will be in well regulated places, where high standards are maintained, and where the regime of child care and early years education meets the changing social and economic patterns.
I am sorry that we finish this Adjournment debate without agreement on the essential issues that caused the hon. Gentleman to call for it. When I knew that I would be responding this evening, I took the opportunity to look again at the Worcestershire plan. I know that, over the next year, the hon. Gentleman will have contact with the early years development partnership and with Christine Pascal. I hope that he will find that the seeds of partnership that have been sown will grow, in the interests of children and their parents. If they do not grow over the next 12 months, I would want to hear about it.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we would take action to ensure that what we have done this year to lay the foundations can be built on year after year, until we achieve our eventual objective of a good quality nursery place for three and four-year-old children whose parents want it, as a start to the children's school life.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to Eleven o'clock.