Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 2011, this House was promised that the Government would

“enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action.”

That would have completed a painful journey that started before the Iraq campaign. It took the threat of a wildcat Parliament in Church House to drag the Government to this place to set up a vote on that matter. It would have seen Parliament play a formal role, under statute, in the process of war and of action overseas. There were discussions over five years about how this might happen, before another Secretary of State came along and abandoned these plans because he believed that they would constrain operational flexibility.

Although those plans were abandoned, we have seen this week that the discussion is far from over. If we all look at our mailbags from the past few days, we will see that our constituents expect us to play a role in this process. They expect to hold us to account for our actions, and I want that.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

rose—

[Alex Norris]

I will not give way for the minute because I wish to make some progress.

Of course, that would be exceptionally difficult, but we were sent here to tackle the exceptionally difficult. In 2013, Parliament debated military action—that has been played out many times over the past few hours—and MPs were given the opportunity to have their say, for better or for worse, to cast their votes, to speak up on behalf of their constituents and to be held accountable. It seemed at that point that a good convention had been established and that it reflected the way that things would be done.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On my hon. Friend’s point about a convention, a law in the United States, the War Powers Resolution, requires the President to notify Congress of his intent and to justify within 48 hours the sending of military forces equipped for combat into foreign nations. Is that not exactly the situation that we were faced with last week?

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend and I share a real passion for all matters American—not just basketball and American football, but the American constitution. He highlights my very point very well.

[Sir William Cash]

In view of the fact that the hon. Gentleman is invoking statute as a means of achieving his objectives, would he be good enough to explain that, effectively, this would mean surrendering national decisions of the utmost importance to the United Kingdom to the courts to decide, because that is where this would lead?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman has not given me the chance to make my case. I am arguing for a formalised, codified role for this place so that we are not in the situation of last week when, for as many tweets as there were about whether we should be acting at all, there were tweets questioning whether Parliament should be recalled. We should not be in this fudge at a time when we are making such important decisions.

We are not asking to constrain operational flexibility—of course we are not. I do not believe that I and all other Members collectively should be setting a strategy for a campaign, but we should have the opportunity to make sure that there is a strategy for the campaign and to ask questions.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

This was not about a campaign. In this instance, it was effectively, about a surgical strike. Does not the hon. Gentleman recognise that he would constrain the flexibility of the Prime Minister if there was a question of timing? If she were obliged to come to this House first, that could seriously impede any operational activity.

[Alex Norris]

I am not arguing for that. We could weave into the statute circumstances in which there was a clear and immediate need to act in the national interest, and the right hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that I am getting to that very point.

I want to draw on the work of the former Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I know that you have a keen eye for detail and strong powers of recall, Mr Speaker, so you will remember that it was my predecessor, Graham Allen, who chaired that Committee. I am afraid that a keen interest in constitutional reform and all those sorts of matters does not pass down through the generations of Nottingham North parliamentarians—or if it does, it has skipped me. Nevertheless, I say to hon. Members that the Committee’s excellent documents are a manual for how we might have such a statute in our law. They offer comprehensive insight. They list the hurdles that we would face, including those regarding the courts, and outline the solutions that are there at our disposal. The solutions are there, so this can be done if there is a will to do it.

The previous Prime Minister said that consulting Parliament regarding military action was a “good convention”. Clearly that convention leaves too much room for debate, as I think this week has shown. As the Leader of the Opposition said, it is broken. Now is the time to settle this one way or another. We should put Parliament’s role in statute. Even if the position is for Parliament to play no role at all, that ought to be written down, and that is why we need a war powers Act. What happened last week was a fudge. It will not do that we are doing a hokey cokey over whether we are coming to London to discuss these matters when we are dealing with really significant incidents across the globe.

The Prime Minister says that the convention still stands, so she believes that Parliament ought to have a role in military action. Well, now is the time to make good on that. Through legislation, we can show once and for all what Parliament does and does not do, and how—in the popular words of the day—we have taken back control for this Parliament.