Sri Harmandir Sahib

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is an important point and the review by Sir Alex Allan that I have just announced will be able to cover it. Such decisions are made at official level and go on all the time under all Governments. They are not made on any political basis or conducted by Ministers. The implementation of the 30-year rule and, as in this case, the reviewing of documents by the Ministry of Defence at the 25-year point are continuous official processes. Judgments have to be made all the time about what is released and, as in this case, what is destroyed. We can all question that particular judgment in retrospect. The review that has been established must consider such issues so that we can all be satisfied that important files will not be destroyed in future.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

This issue has caused great sadness to the Sikh community in Scotland, across the UK and across the world. That community enriches our economy, our culture and our society, and the very least that it deserves from this process is closure. It will never overcome the sadness or get those lives back. Sadly, I do not think that today’s report gives it the closure that it needs. I urge the Foreign Secretary to have a further investigation that looks into the full communications that took place between the UK Government and the Indian Government in the lead-up to the storming of the temple and during the events that followed.

[Mr Hague]

I emphasise to the hon. Gentleman the extent and thoroughness of what the Cabinet Secretary has done. Twenty-three thousand documents is not a small number, even by Government standards, and 200 files is not a small number. The investigation has been conducted by the Cabinet Secretary, not by me or any other Minister. Having read the report, I have no reason to think that it is not a very thorough piece of work. I think that it helps all of us, including people in the Sikh community, whom the hon. Gentleman was quite right to speak about in the terms that he did, to understand the events and to see them in their true light. As I said earlier, I hope that it will be of some reassurance to the Sikh community, the House and the wider public.