Iraq Inquiry

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, my father served on the Western Front in the First World War as a Royal Engineer officer. He was in the Somme valley from 1915 right through and beyond Armistice into 1919, so he was there throughout the build-up and there through the appalling slaughter of the Battle of the Somme, about which we have been thinking in recent days. Unsurprisingly, like many others of those who survived, he never really talked about his experiences on the Western Front and we knew only recently that he was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

His attitude later was undoubtedly reflected by that of many historians that the First World War was a matter of lions led by donkeys. If he were to summarise the Chilcot report, he would say that it was lions misled by political ostriches: politicians deliberately ignoring the facts and rushing into war to avoid them, on both sides of the Atlantic.

I note that last weekend the noble Lord, Lord Prescott —second-in-command in the Blair Government —wrote:

“In 2004, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that as regime change was the prime aim of the Iraq war, it was illegal. With great sadness and anger, I now believe him to be right”.

I salute the noble Lord for that. I would be even more impressed by his candour if he admitted that Charles Kennedy, and Liberal Democrat MPs, of whom I was one, took precisely that same view in March 2003.

I have few regrets from my political life, although I have some. However, I certainly do not regret that vote. Incidentally, those Conservatives who now revisit their enthusiastic support for the invasion on the basis that nobody could reasonably doubt the evidence and rationale that Prime Minister Blair placed before Parliament, seem to forget that Ken Clarke and 14 Conservative Members of Parliament also voted with us in the Division Lobby. They, just as much as Robin Cook, to whom reference has been made by many this afternoon, deserve to be recognised for sticking to their international principles in those difficult circumstances.

As the Chilcot report makes abundantly clear, the acceleration towards invasion was motivated by complicated US and UK government initiatives. In the UN they were having difficulty, and they had further doubts about Saddam’s elusive WMD, because they could not believe that Hans Blix’s investigations were, at that stage, correct. They were worried that their casus belli might be stymied by those doubts.

In the following weeks I had a particular reason for pursuing that aspect of the sorry saga. The first British casualty—the first British fatality—of the invasion was Sergeant Steven Roberts, whose family lived in my North Cornwall constituency. Within days his family had been informed, by letter from an officer in his unit, of the stark details of his death: his malfunctioning weapon; the fatal shot might well have come from a colleague; but, most significantly, he was not wearing appropriate protective armour—enhanced combat body armour, or ECBA. On their behalf, I asked a number of questions of the Ministry of Defence, and I received total brick-wall answers. Meanwhile, we were amazed by a revelation from the National Audit Office, referring to ECBA:

“200,000 sets had been issued since the Kosovo campaign in 1999, greatly exceeding the theoretical requirement, but these seem to have disappeared”.

Even when I secured a meeting with the then Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Geoff Hoon, for Sergeant Roberts’s widow, mother and brother, we got no satisfactory explanations for that extraordinary situation. The nearest we came to understanding was when a senior officer attending our meeting with Mr Hoon claimed that preparations for the invasion had to proceed “with some secrecy”. Paragraphs 811 to 813 of the executive summary of the Chilcot report make specific reference to this.

That is why I need to concentrate on that part of the report. It is clear that, egged on by the US President, who was still bent on misdirected revenge for 9/11, the Prime Minister was desperate not to appear to be preparing for an invasion while still seeking a peaceful outcome via the United Nations in the autumn of 2002. On this point Chilcot is quite explicit: going to war without a majority in the United Nations Security Council,

“undermined the authority of the UN”.

The subsequent board of inquiry report into Sergeant Roberts’s death identified political constraints,

“at the level of the Secretary of State, which held up ordering and deployment of sufficient sets of ECBA to protect all our troops in dangerous positions in Iraq”.

What Sergeant Roberts himself described as a joke was far, far worse: it was the end result of political subterfuge and misjudgment. At the inquest into his death, the coroner said that it was,

“as a result of delay and serious failures in the acquisition and support chain that resulted in a significant shortage within his fighting unit of enhanced combat body armour, none being available for him”,

and concluded that this was “unforgivable and inexcusable”.

Nearly four years after Sergeant Roberts’s death, in January 2007, the then Minister for Defence Procurement admitted in answer to a Parliamentary Question in your Lordships’ House that:

“At that time the United Kingdom was deeply involved in diplomatic activity endeavouring to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Iraq and no decision to commit a UK land force to any potential operation had been taken. The judgment was that to place orders for equipment which would have indicated preparations for the deployment of a large land force would have risked undermining this diplomatic effort”.—[Official Report, 10/1/07; col. WA 90.]

In other words, Sergeant Roberts died because the UK Government spent several months trying to cover up the intentions of the US and UK Governments. I make no apology for emphasising this one very specific aspect of the Chilcot report.

Members of your Lordships’ House will, I think, understand why I feel so passionately that Tony Blair should now admit that his insistence on following President Bush willy-nilly into war was a tragic mistake. As the noble Lord, Lord King, said, that brief sentence:

“I will be with you, whatever”,

had tragic consequences. Of course, Sergeant Roberts’s unnecessary death has been followed by countless other tragedies—for Iraqi civilians as well as allied troops—and Britain’s international reputation is severely tarnished to this day as a direct result.

Perhaps the last word can best come from Charles Kennedy, in that fateful debate on 18 March 2003:

“Although I have never been persuaded of a causal link between the Iraqi regime, al-Qaeda and 11 September, I believe that the impact of war in these circumstances is bound to weaken the international coalition against terrorism itself, and not least in the Muslim world. The big fear that many of us have is that the action will simply breed further generations of suicide bombers”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/03; col. 786.]

That is where we are today.

House of Lords: Questions

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have an opportunity to contribute in the gap, very briefly, and particularly to at least half support the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. I hope that this will not surprise him. The real demand in the House is not for more Questions but more opportunities to contribute to Question Time. That is what we should be thinking about. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will regard it as a compliment if I regard him as a traditional Tory. I hope that the noble Earl may take the same view. That is where it seems to me the demand is. It is a traditional Tory approach that supply should meet and reflect demand.

I am in favour of five tabled Questions, whether it is within 40 minutes, 30 minutes or 45 minutes. That can be a matter of discussion. Clearly, the real demand in the House is to contribute to those very useful mini-debates that we have. I am probably the only Member in your Lordships’ House this evening who has experienced Questions at the other end of the building, where there are no real discussions, no dialogue and no proper debate. There is a bit of a row from behind the Minister to egg him on, like a football crowd, and there is the opposite from the Opposition Benches. It is not the same quality of real discussion or real exchange and follow-up that we have in your Lordships’ House. The original Question is often followed by a question that is absolutely spot on because the Minister’s reply has not developed the discussion in any positive way.

An interesting point was made earlier tonight. I think that reading the Question often means a shorter supplementary rather than a rather wordy one from some of our more experienced Members who tend to be more loquacious. I also think that it would be useful if we got away from this absurdity of referring to this lucky dip, this raffle, as a ballot. In my view, a ballot is something you vote in. Every time I am asked, “How did you manage to get that Question?” I say, “It was a lucky dip, you know”. They say, “But it was a ballot”. The origins of the word ballot as I understand it from the Oxford English Dictionary is that people actually express a preference for something. That is what a ballot is for. It would be helpful if we got away from that.

The contrast with the Commons means that we have something rather special in those 30—or 35, or 40, or even 50—minutes. We have an opportunity for a real exchange across the House. That is what I am in favour of. That is where people seem to want to be. I did not read the brief from the Lords Library in quite the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, who made an excellent opening speech. I thought that he was underrating the extent to which Members are involved. When we had a big Division in your Lordships’ House a fortnight ago, about 500 people voted. If a third to a half of our Members are regularly putting down an Oral Question each Session, that is not bad. That does not seem to be the issue. The issue is that we do not have enough time for that exchange across the House. That is why I think there should be more attention to the time that is given to those supplementary questions.

It is time for a more comprehensive review. Everything that has been said in your Lordships’ House this evening, and which I suspect may well be said by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt Kings Heath, in a moment suggests that the increasingly active participation of Members—it is not so much the total number but the fact that we have more active Members on all sides of the House—means that they want to contribute in a meaningful, positive way. I hope, therefore, that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, will be able to say that it will be the policy of those who have influence in the usual channels to look again at this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

Yes, I am sure that that idea deserves full consideration. I think we would all agree that it is getting to a stage where we must impress on all Members of the House, not just the new arrivals, that we have rules which are here for a purpose and have been carefully thought through over the years—and that it is in all our interests to adhere to them.

[Lord Tyler]

I wonder if I am alone in observing that the shouting at Members—and new Members, too—who are reading notes tends to lengthen the whole process rather than shorten it. If somebody has a good note and refers to it in a short, sharp question, that is surely preferable to those who waffle on without notes to guide them.

[Earl Howe]

I totally agree with the point that the noble Lord makes.

What this useful debate has shown is that there are some changes which we could helpfully consider. But I would add that, regardless of what procedural changes we might wish to consider, we also need to look at how we can work together to enable more voices to be heard at Question Time. One of the concerns raised with me is that the Chamber of the House can feel an intimidating place in which to intervene at Question Time and that the louder voices are heard more often. That is something we all can change, if we are minded to do so.

Self-regulation is a cherished feature of this House and one that we should guard jealously. It means that we are in control of our own affairs and can work together to make our business work. That is a responsibility on us all. It is not just for the Leader, incidentally, or for that matter the party and group leaders; it is for each and every Member of the House. If we want to hear from a broader range of people—and from the debate today, I clearly sense that we all do—we need to encourage those who speak less to speak up. That means making sure that we allow those with particular expertise to get in when they seek to do so and look for ways of helping those from whom we hear less to take part.

One way would be to keep supplementary questions brief, to allow other noble Lords to get in, but more generally it is about making sure that being self-effacing does not mean not being heard. Fostering that culture could be the single biggest step that we could take to hear from more noble Lords and to make our Question Time an even better forum for us to showcase the contribution that this House can make to the world outside.

Although I welcome any further discussion with those who want to consider procedural changes, we should remember also that cultural change must follow in step if we are to really make the best use of the talent around the House. I look forward to working with those here today to make progress in that regard.

Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, we were very clear in the general election and in our manifesto that we would be introducing welfare savings of £12 billion and that these would be directed at working-age benefits. What we also did at the same time was promise a package of measures to support working families—a new settlement for the people of this country, so that they would continue to be better off in work and would continue to prosper. That is what we were very clear about in the general election campaign. That is what we were elected to deliver for the people of this country.

Secondly, the SI before us will increase the taper rate from 41% to 48%. This will mean that the rate at which tax credits are withdrawn will increase, but we will do so in a measured way with a gradual taper, which will still ensure that those on tax credits who work more will always take more pay home. Finally, it will reduce the income rise disregard, the in-year increase to an individual’s pay that can take place before their tax credit reward is recalculated, from £5,000 to £2,500—bringing it to a 10th of the rate it stood at when we came to power in 2010.

A sustainable economy which reduces inequality and provides opportunity for all means making choices. There are no easy options, but what we try to do is carefully balance spending and taxation decisions so that the richest pay the most towards services that are so vital to everyone, and the climate is right for everyone to seize opportunities to get on and to be successful. The Government’s job is to manage that in the fairest way while delivering the most important thing of all for working people: economic security and sound public finances.

The Government believe that as part of the overall package of measures that support working people, these changes to tax credits are right. If we want people to earn more and to keep more of their own money, we simply cannot keep recycling their money through a system that subsidises low pay. That is the Government’s case for these changes. But with the amendments we are due to consider, there are broader questions at stake, too, about our role in scrutinising secondary legislation and about the financial primacy of the other place.

I know that Members of this House on all Benches take their responsibilities very seriously and are committed to ensuring that the House fulfils its proper role, so let me be very clear. We as a Government do not support any of the amendments tabled to the Motion in my name, but I am also clear that the approach the right reverend Prelate takes in his amendment, by inviting the House to put on the record its concerns about our policy and calling on the Government to address them without challenging the clear and unequivocal decision made in the other place, is entirely in line with the long-standing traditions of your Lordships’ House.

The other three amendments take us into quite different and uncharted territory. All three, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Manzoor, Lady Meacher and Lady Hollis, if agreed to, would mean that this House has withheld its approval of the statutory instrument. That would stand in direct contrast to the elected House of Commons, which has not only approved the instrument but reaffirmed its view on Division only last week. It would have the practical effect of preventing the implementation of a policy that will deliver £4.4 billion of savings to the Exchequer next year—a central plank of the Government’s fiscal policy as well as its welfare policy. It is a step that would challenge the primacy of the other place on financial matters.

I have been to see the Chancellor this morning at No. 11, and I can confirm that he will listen very carefully were the House to express its concern in the way that it is precedented for us to do so, and that is on the right reverend Prelate’s amendment. But this House will be able to express a view on that amendment only if the other three amendments on the Order Paper are rejected or withdrawn.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, the Leader of the House has given us the impression that there is some convention that prevents your Lordships’ House from voting on these amendments. I would ask her to look again at the report of the Joint Committee on Conventions entitled Conventions of the UK Parliament, which states clearly in paragraphs 227 and 228 that it is perfectly in order for your Lordships’ House to take a view on a statutory instrument of this nature and so,

“we conclude that the House of Lords should not regularly reject Statutory Instruments, but that in exceptional circumstances it may be appropriate for it to do so … The Government appear to consider that any defeat of an SI by the Lords is a breach of convention. We disagree”.

Your Lordships’ House and the other place approved the recommendations of the Joint Committee. If the Chancellor had wished to introduce a tax credit amendment Bill, he could of course have used the usual procedure and avoided the embarrassing situation that the Leader of the House is now outlining. He took a short cut to avoid debate, and he has now got the consequences.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

Armed Forces

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever for initiating this debate. I am particularly grateful for his reminder that this debate is wide-ranging, because what I am about to say is not in the mainstream of what has been discussed—so far, certainly.

I am a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Three weeks ago, we undertook a fact-finding visit to Belfast in connection with the decade of commemoration of the centenary of seminal events that took place in Ireland between 1912 and 1922. In the course of this visit we in the group were impressed by the growing interest on both sides of the border in the contribution of the Irish regiments in the Great War. The history of the 36th Ulster Division is well known and commemorated by the Ulster Tower on the Somme battlefield. Of the two divisions raised in southern Ireland—the 10th and the 16th—much less is known. It became clear in the course of our inquiries that for many nationalist families until very recently the service of great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers in the British Army in the First World War has been treated as a guilty secret never to be discussed and to be airbrushed out of the family history.

My honourable friend Conor Burns, Member of Parliament for Bournemouth West, is a Roman Catholic who was born in Belfast and raised largely in Great Britain. He is a colleague on the British-Irish parliamentary group and kindly agreed that I could quote his family as an example of the ignorance in which younger generations were kept, until very recently, about the service in the British Army of their forbears—in his case, his grandmother’s family, several of whom served in the Army.

However, in the recent past, there has been a perceptible change of attitude. What has caused this? Certainly, the internet has played a part. Records in places such as the National Archives in Kew and Dublin have become more readily accessible, and with the various ancestry search programmes there has been increasing curiosity about family histories, including regarding some aspects previously regarded as taboo. There continues to be research particularly on the five Irish regiments that were disbanded in 1922. In some cases, this has extended to individual battalions. For example, the 6th Connaught Rangers, a Kitchener or New Army battalion, was raised in Catholic west Belfast, and its recruits would have been almost to a man Redmond nationalists. The battalion fought on the Somme with the 16th Irish Division. Its history is the subject of a meticulously researched and well produced book, which in its appendix lists the careers and ultimate destinations of every member of the battalion, many of them sadly killed in action. This is but one of a number of initiatives of this nature in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

This significant change of attitude to a subject treated hitherto as an embarrassment by many an Irish family is part of the transformation of British-Irish relations in recent years. Much credit for this must go to the leadership shown by two successive Presidents of the Republic, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, and continued by President O’Higgins. It of course culminated with the visit to the Republic by Her Majesty the Queen in 2010, the impact of which on the people of Ireland is even now not fully appreciated on this side of the Irish Sea. Tangible evidence of this new outlook is the increase in the number of visitors from the Irish Republic to the battlefields of France and Flanders, in many cases to visit the graves of forbears of whose military history they were previously unaware. The defining moment of the Irish contribution in the Great War came with the Battle of Messines in 1917, when for the first time the 36th Ulster Division and the 16th Irish Division fought alongside in an action that many military historians regard as the most significant tactical victory in the whole of the Great War.

In the time available, I have not been able to research the detailed statistics of those who served and were killed in the First World War, but about 149,000 volunteered from the whole of Ireland, and just under 30,000 were killed. It is difficult to break down the figures of the war dead from the various provinces, but when one considers that there were one Ulster division and two Irish divisions, it is clear that the suffering must have been fairly widespread throughout the whole of Ireland.

[Lord Tyler]

I am very moved by what my noble friend is saying. It so happens that just a few weeks ago I visited the Somme—as I mentioned to him the other day—and was struck by the fact that Irishmen from both sides of what is now the border were standing side by side, with great courage and tenacity, particularly in the July Somme attack, as well as later in the 1914-1918 war. I visited a number of cemeteries because my three uncles were killed during the war, and I was moved when I met young people from both sides of the current Irish border who came together in coachloads to see some of these cemeteries. I entirely endorse what my noble friend is saying, and I am very pleased to be in the House to hear him.

[Viscount Bridgeman]

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Tyler for that intervention.

I should also mention that a large number of Irishmen, particularly from the south-east seaboard counties of what is now the Republic, would have served in the Royal Navy. It is against the background of all this that I should say that there was no conscription in any part of the island in either of the two world wars.

This debate, initiated by my noble friend, is timely, coming as it does on the week before Remembrance Sunday. I suggest that it is appropriate, within this debate, to place on record the contribution and sacrifice of so many Irishmen in the Great War, which for far too long has remained largely overlooked. The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, mentioned the phrase, “Lest we forget”. It is particularly comforting that this increasingly embraces the families of many of our friends in the Republic of Ireland at this time.

Gulf War Illnesses

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate and thank, in the same terms as did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, for the way in which he has so persistently and persuasively pursued the issue of the treatment of Gulf War settlements. Like the noble Lord, Lord Morris, I am a member of the Royal British Legion Gulf War Group, and have been since the problem was first identified—a non-pecuniary interest. Indeed, I know that all participants in this evening's debate are veterans of the issue. All of us have taken part in debates—in both Houses, in my case—about the issue for the almost 20 years for which it has been such a controversial concern for many of us.

I came to the issue first because I was concerned about organophosphate pesticides in workforces outwith the armed services—notably among sheep farmers in what was then my constituency. About 20 years ago, that became an apparent problem in the south-west because of the continuing use of very dangerous chemicals for dipping sheep. What came first to my notice was the extraordinary similarity of symptoms between those who came back from the Gulf, having been exposed to very similar compounds to those used in sheep dip, and those who had suffered serious illness as a result of their work on sheep farms.

I am not going to attempt to cover the areas of particular expertise and experience which have already been touched on this evening, because I do not aspire to do so. However, I am extremely concerned about a point that I hope the Minister will take up, which is that we may find in the near future that the victims of organophosphate poisoning, whether in the Gulf or anywhere else, may be the unfortunate further victims of the changes to the disability living allowance which have just been announced. Admittedly, they will not come into being for two or three years, but I am reliably informed by the brief from the Department for Work and Pensions that the move away from self-reported assessments to more objective assessments—I am using the department’s own words—may well prove to be particularly difficult in the case of veterans and those who have been exposed to these pesticides because, by their very nature, they are not easily identified and diagnosed by professionals. Indeed, many GPs, who were in many cases the first port of call for those returning from the Gulf, had no proper advice about the likely symptoms of Gulf War illness. As has already been referred to, the constant quibbling over whether there was one particular Gulf War syndrome, or a group of illnesses, went on for years in Parliament, outwith Parliament and in the Ministry of Defence. I am afraid that that made it even more confusing for those who gave medical advice to those coming back from the Gulf.

As the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, said, the US research advisory committee’s report is an amazingly comprehensive and conscientious attempt to get to the bottom of these problems. What is so remarkable is that, in precise and comprehensive terms, it is absolutely relevant to UK members of the combined forces that went to the Gulf. Every item in the report, which I have read with great care, applies absolutely to our forces. Of course it does, because they were exposed to almost exactly the same preparatory conditions as the US veterans before they went there. What is so extraordinary—and I refer to the findings in brief—is that the RAC states in the report:

“Gulf war illness is a serious condition that affects at least one-fourth of the 697,000 US veterans who served in the 1990-1991 Gulf War”.

The scale that was identified by the RAC report is important and relevant to our troops and Defence Ministers. I share the dismay that other speakers have already expressed this evening at the way in which this absolutely clear indication of the scale of the problem has been treated with such apparent—not contempt, as that would be putting it too strong; but as if it was not really anything like as serious as has become so apparent through the work of the Administration in Washington.

That is not the whole story. As has already been indicated, the expeditious response to the RAC work by the US Department of Veterans Affairs has been remarkably different from the response we have had in this country. I can be brief because others have already expressed not only our anxieties and concerns but, most importantly, our hope and trust that the new Government will adopt a new approach. We should be delighted and should indicate how much we respect the fact that the US Administration have borne the brunt of this research and investment which is so relevant to our veterans. If we had had to do all that work on our own account and the US had not led on this, the money and time which would have been spent in this country would have been very considerable. We are very fortunate. I hope that the Minister and the new coalition Government will recognise just how fortunate we are that the Americans have led the way in this respect.

I hope that the Government will therefore take account of the precise terms of this Question for Short Debate tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester. All we are asking the Government to do is to take full account of the very detailed, precise and comprehensive work that has effectively been done on our behalf. I am confident that the Minister, who has been involved in previous discussions in this House, will indicate that our coalition will take a fresh approach. As has been said, we are fast approaching the 20th anniversary of the deployment of the young men and young women who went to fight on our behalf in the Gulf. As we approach that 20th anniversary, surely it must be a debt of honour to recognise at long last what they did on our behalf and to make sure that there is no further problem in trying to obtain proper recognition of their sacrifice and suffering, and proper compensation to meet it.