Historical Allegations:Operation Conifer

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

No one could have done more to safeguard and defend the integrity and reputation of Sir Edward Heath than the noble Lord. On the Government’s role, the noble Lord, together with my noble friends Lord Hunt and Lord MacGregor, went to see the Home Secretary on 10 September. Their meeting lasted 40 minutes and they deployed, with all the force and eloquence at their disposal, their concerns and proposals for the Government to intervene. The Home Secretary said that he would reflect on it; he has previously overturned the decisions of his predecessors where he felt that the case was made. In this case, a month after that meeting and having taken advice, he wrote to the noble Lord on 10 October. He said: “I do not think there are grounds to justify review or intervention by Government”. He then set out his reasons. Unless something has happened in the past month, I do not believe that the Home Secretary will change his decision.

On the broader issues, I find it compelling that those who knew Sir Edward personally do not believe that there is one scintilla of truth in the accusations that were made. The noble Lord asked me to state from the Dispatch Box that in my view, had Sir Edward lived, the case would not have reached the level at which the CPS would institute a case. I hope that he, as a former Cabinet Secretary, will understand that it would not be right for a Minister to make such a pronouncement.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

The House will appreciate the tone of the Minister’s reply, which seemed very fair, but the excellent Question from the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, refers to historical allegations. These are not, of course, allegations by historians. We have a tradition in politics in this country of allowing these accusations to fester over decades, with the result that it is very difficult to form a clear view. If we were addressing matters that were, let us say, medical or scientific we would have authoritative and qualified people to deal with them. Could we not have appropriate scholarly authorities deal with this matter?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

This whole episode illustrates the problems confronting the police. On the one hand they are conducting thorough investigations and taking complainant’s allegations seriously, and on the other avoiding unfair damage to the reputation of people who can no longer defend themselves. The College of Policing has reflected on this challenge as part of its review of guidance in this area. The previous Home Secretary asked Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to see how this guidance is working. I hope that as part of that review, HMIC will take on board the very strong views expressed on many occasions by those on all sides of the House about the way the guidance is operating.

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I refute that there is in any sense a conspiracy connected to the former Prime Minister or the former American president. It has taken a good deal longer than was anticipated to clear the many thousands of documents that have been examined and which will be published on the website with a number of redactions. That process is now virtually complete. The Maxwellisation letters, which were sent out as a warning last year, should now be going out and we hope that that process will be completed. As soon as those who are to be criticised in the report have responded, the report will be ready for submission to the Prime Minister.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, is this not a scandal following on a scandal? Is it not a public disgrace? In other countries—for example, the Netherlands—there were far more competent professional inquiries, full of lawyers who could comment on international law, which replied very swiftly. We have had this endless delay. Does it not indicate that perhaps the Government as well as the Civil Service have ceased to believe in open government?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

No, my Lords, I do not think that it does. It has taken longer than we had hoped or expected. This is an entirely new sort of inquiry. I suppose it is comparable to the Savile inquiry, which also took a great deal longer than we had anticipated. We underestimated the complexity before we started, but we are encouraging the committee as rapidly as possible to complete and we are anxious to have the report published.

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that the Chilcot inquiry is of such a nature that too much should not be expected of it. Many of the main issues confronting the inquiry were legal; the resignation of Elizabeth Wilmshurst from the Foreign Office was, I recall, on the legality of the Iraq operation. The Netherlands inquiry consisted entirely of lawyers and dealt very thoroughly with the issues. The Chilcot inquiry does not have a single lawyer. It has a couple of historians, which is a good thing, but not a single lawyer. We have been told—among others, by the late Lord Bingham—that the invasion was in clear breach of international law.

Why is the delay so crucial and worrying? First, because the inquiry explores the operation of government—indeed, the operation of government is a major reason for the delay. How could government so malfunction? How could the Cabinet be kept in almost total ignorance? How could the advice of the Attorney-General be so ambiguous and change from week to week? How could the security committee operate in such a way and briefly be chaired, incredibly, by Alastair Campbell? How could the Prime Minister arrogate such overwhelming power? How could he get away with such astonishing mis-statements, including the fact that it had all been agreed with Bush in Crawford a year before yet he pretended that it had not? Those things are very dangerous and should be explored. All serious students of the constitution—of whom I consider myself to be one—should consider them.

Secondly, how could perceptions of policy in the Middle East be so utterly wrong? How could the internal politics and history of Iraq be so misread? How could anyone seriously believe that the British and American invaders would be greeted as democratic saviours, not as brutal invaders killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in their wake? How contemptible a line of logic is that? How could so few preparations be made for the aftermath of the war? We are now seeing the effect in the ISIS militias operating in Iraq. How could people seriously believe that Iraq had its own integrity and that the Government of al-Maliki could be credible? The country of Iraq is now fragmenting into at least three parts. My noble friend rightly said that journalists should be well informed, and I rely heavily on my good friend—I think, the best journalist in Iraq—Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, who has shredded so many of the arguments in this area.

Iraq is a shameful episode. The moral was learnt by some in Syria. It was perhaps learnt the second time around in Iraq. It generated enormous popular protest, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, observed. I took part in the march, the greatest statement of popular opposition, popular protest, since the time of the chartists. I also wrote in the Guardian, which I heard get some praise in the opening speech. It was a debacle comparable to Suez, as we have heard. Suez marked the end of empire; Iraq, I think, marked the end of British foreign policy. Our legacy has been shredded in Syria, Libya, and Iraq as well, and there is nothing left.

It raises, finally, the problem of democratic control and, indeed, the role of Parliament, of which the noble Lord, Lord Owen, spoke. The issue of democratic control of foreign policy was first raised during the First World War—we will not hear much of that in the commemorations. We now need democratic control by Parliament to be explored in order to make sure that it never happens again. Michael Foot, of whom I once wrote, talked about the Guilty Men in relation to Munich and appeasement. This time we need to expose and bring to justice these latest guilty men.

Devolution and Decentralisation: Constitutional Commission

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is an interesting idea which we should all consider debating further. The northern parts of England have interests in common with Scotland in wanting to counter the dominance of London, which is a part of the problem as well as a huge advantage for the United Kingdom in economic terms. It is a part of the dialogue that we all need to have.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, Professor Anthony King has quite rightly described the current constitution of this country as a mess. Would not a constitutional convention help to clear up the mess by clarifying the muddle over asymmetrical devolution, by clearing up the devo-max in Scotland that dare not speak its name, by reasserting the authority of the Westminster Parliament and, above all, by at long last doing something about England and showing that it is not simply a bad football team?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We will leave the football team to one side. Constitutional conventions have, on the whole, taken place after revolutions—for example, in the United States, France and elsewhere. To go as far as a constitutional convention for the whole of the United Kingdom would be a radical and rational step. I encourage the noble Lord, as a rational radical, to pursue that. However, currently there is no public demand for it and I have not yet heard any major political party suggest it.

First World War: Centenary

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords, should we not recognise—I think that the Minister wisely does—that the First World War was a very important chapter in our social and cultural as well as our military history? Should we not therefore focus on aspects such as the role of women, the centrality of trade unions in our life and the sensibilities of war poets, who were disgusted by that obscene episode? Should we not focus on that rather than, as I fear Remembrance Sunday is becoming, a celebration of militarism?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this year I watched the Remembrance Sunday commemoration very closely from the Foreign Office and I did not think that it had become more militaristic. I was also struck and encouraged that a number of veterans from other countries were marching in the parade. That is also highly desirable. It is not entirely, therefore, a national or nationalistic occasion.

On the question of the wider social context, that is absolutely part of what we will do. In my area, the Saltaire History Club and the Bradford World War One Group—there is one—are already discussing how they will look at the impact on the mill in Saltaire, which turned over to producing khaki cloth and all the other dimensions. A large number of its workforce ended up being women.