Report of the Iraq Inquiry
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Clarke of Nottingham(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)
The decision to invade Iraq was the most disastrous foreign policy decision taken by this country in my lifetime. It did not cause, but it greatly contributed to, the extraordinary problems that have persisted in the middle east and the wider world ever since. I fear it will continue to have tragic consequences for some years to come.
First, we all owe a debt to Sir John Chilcot for producing what will undoubtedly be the most authoritative analysis of how on earth such an appalling blunder came to be made. I certainly have not had the chance to get much beyond the executive summary and just a little bit of the rest of it. It will take a long time before anybody in this House gets through the millions of words that have been produced. The lessons for the inquiry into the Iraq war will be of benefit in particular to specialists: those in the military, the intelligence service, the diplomatic corps and politicians—Ministers, shadow Ministers and those who hold the Government to account—for many years to come. It is too soon to follow up on his extremely formidable findings, which I am sure are correct, but there is a role for this House to begin to consider, as we are, its political aspect.
Sir John Chilcot has examined the formal records, meetings and processes. He analysed them to see what happened, but he is not a politician. The House of Commons and the Ministers involved are able to look at this with a slightly different eye. Why did people reach particular decisions? What is it that makes us want to reach those decisions? Where did it go wrong, in particular as far as the collective system of Cabinet Government is concerned, and the accountability, through Parliament, to the wider public? Because Sir John Chilcot is not a politician, I am not sure that he is able to answer on the wider perspective.
I would like to begin by agreeing with one point made by the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and say how irrelevant it has been to try to turn all this into a witch hunt against celebrity individuals who were involved at the time. That is one of the great failures of political debate in our day. As far as the wider media and the world were concerned, the recent referendum debate was largely the Dave and Boris show. It is quite pointless to say, “Let’s persecute Tony Blair. He was in charge. Are we going to censure him? Is he going to be prosecuted as a war criminal?” and all the rest of it. That is also true for all the other individuals involved.
The one thing the report makes quite clear is that nobody has committed any crime. As one who was present at the time, I have absolutely no doubt that anybody acted on any other basis than that they believed passionately they were acting in the public interest. One of the great things about Tony Blair was that he did believe passionately in what he was doing at the time. That was very evident on the Floor of the House. He never had a doubt about what he was doing, so I am not surprised that he continues to protest as strongly as he does. He has not changed his mind. He believed he was acting in the national interest in cementing our alliance with the Americans. He thought that was absolutely key to our security. He thought that a British contribution would help the Americans with planning, advocacy and so on. He firmly believed that just removing Saddam Hussein was a virtuous act that would make the world a better place—he still does.
Then, as now, regime change is the point on which he gets most passionate. He really thinks—he is probably right; I agree with him, actually—that he got rid of an evil regime. I agree with those who say that that was not in itself a totally adequate achievement. He certainly believed that the regime had weapons of mass destruction. I faced him in the House, intervening on him and so on. I remember one day thinking, “This is the last man still living who still believes they are going to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” It was increasingly obvious to everyone else that no such material was going to be found. Pursuing Tony Blair is a complete irrelevance to what the House should be looking at.
Caroline Lucas
I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way and agree with him on the dangers of focusing on just one person. We need to focus on that person, but we also need to focus on the system. However, I worry about the way in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman appears to be letting that one person off any real responsibility for misleading the House. We only have to read Chilcot to see, for example, how Blair misled the House about the position of the French. The motion Blair moved in the House stated that,
“it has not proved possible to secure a second Resolution in the UN because one Permanent Member of the Security Council made plain in public its intention to use its veto whatever the circumstances”.—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 760.]
Yet within a few minutes, even before Prime Minister’s questions, the French were on the phone to Tony Blair saying, “You are deliberately misrepresenting our position.” This happens time and again in the Chilcot report, so while we should not focus only on one man, let us not let him off the hook completely. That does not do any of us any good.
Mr Clarke
I certainly did not rise to defend Tony Blair, but he is not the first politician to make a mistake and he will not be the last. If the hon. Lady believes the French, she believes the French. The French were able to exercise a veto in the Security Council. It was a mistake at the time to try to blame the French entirely. They were never going to get a majority in the Security Council, but the French were adamantly—[Interruption.]
Deregulation Bill
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Clarke of Nottingham(10 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister without Portfolio (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
A small and select group of specialist people have taken part in this debate, but it has been a very worthwhile one and while it has got very heated and agitated at times, I keep being reminded of how closely we have all been forced together, and the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) therefore finished on a very welcome note. The fact is that, so far as I noticed in every contribution from the moment the debate started, we all rather accept the need for deregulation. Everybody agreed on the other hand that there is a case for sensible regulation in the modern world. Indeed, it is highly desirable, but it is essential from time to time for Governments and Parliament to ensure that what is being done is proportionate, sensible, justifiable and does not impose unnecessary burdens on individuals and branches of government, and on business and small business in particular. We have gone round and round in circles and some Members have got wildly excited about particular regulations, but the fact is we come back to agreement on that point, and I get the impression that no one is going to press any objection this evening to the vote.
Caroline Lucas
I have been advised that it will be helpful to the House to let the right hon. and learned Gentleman know that I do not intend to press the amendment tonight.
Mr Clarke
I am very grateful to hear it because by its very nature a deregulatory Bill gives rise to many points that can be raised in Committee.
The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) raised a lot of detailed points, and said that they should be considered in Committee. He has already served on the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee. It is inevitable, when the British cover such a wide variety of things in regulation, that we sometimes have to have an item-by-item vote.
I take it from the tone of the debate today that the general direction of policy set out by the Government has fairly widespread approval. I have endured the experience of opposition, albeit briefly, in my time, and I occasionally had the burden of being sent along to a debate of this kind and trying to find something to argue about. I think that that was the problem facing the two very able Front-Bench speakers representing the Opposition today.
A strange argument broke out at one point today about whether what we were doing was totally insubstantial, worthless and of no point to the outside world, or whether it was completely horrendous and, as the Green amendment, which is no longer being pressed, says,
“ripping up vital green legislation”.
It was suggested that our blood should run cold at the idea of what we were doing to everyone from those climbing mountains to those running small businesses.
The claim was also made that the last Government had somehow achieved £3 billion of savings through their strident deregulatory measures. I am not here to debate the record of the last Government, but that is quite the most startling exposition of what they achieved that I have ever heard. I do not recommend that any Labour spokesman should try to persuade an audience of any of the small businessmen I have ever met that that was what they were doing.
The Bill represents the most determined effort of any Government I have known to pursue the deregulatory aims to which most Governments have paid lip service for the past 20 years. We were all into deregulation in the early 1990s; then the Labour Government talked about “better regulation”. I believe that this Government can claim that the substance of what we are producing greatly exceeds anything that has been done before.
Some of the figures that have been quoted about the impact of the Bill disguise the fact that it is only one part of the red tape challenge that is being led by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy. The Bill runs alongside and is part of that challenge, and it contains the elements that require primary legislation. My right hon. Friend has mentioned the 3,000 regulations that need to be repealed or improved.
The Bill has to be big enough and long enough to deal with so many detailed areas, and it will supplement and add to that to produce a deregulatory effect for businesses—particularly small businesses—as well as individual citizens, local authorities and branches of government, all of which have better things to do than to waste money on statutory duties the reason for which no one knows, or to produce reports that nobody reads or to have obligations for things that nobody is asking them to give advice on. For example, school governors have to publish advice on discipline. Our reforms will not undermine school discipline; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has talked about the need for school discipline. Most governors do not even know they are under such an obligation, but unfortunately some do produce a statement of policy, which is not required. That regulation will now be repealed.
The key part of the Bill is the one that relates to business. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) on this. I think we will need a Bill of this kind every 10 years or so. In modern times, as a result of single-issue lobby groups and newspaper campaigns, Government Departments engage in ever-more legislative and regulatory activity, sometimes for the sake of being seen to be doing something or, in the case of the lobby groups, being seen to be demanding something new. That has an adverse effect not only on the statute book and the regulatory publications but on the administration of good government and the running of any successful business. The Bill is therefore a welcome, and drastic, attempt to change the culture and go back in the direction of common sense and proper regulation that involves a true public interest and to ensure that environmental standards and the safety of workers are maintained.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), echoed by the hon. Member for Hartlepool, got on to matters that were of concern to her. Although such things can be discussed in Committee, I have to say that an attempt was being made to make a difference of principle that was not there. For example, we had the issue of employment rights and of the tribunals dealing with claims by employees against their employer. Let me make it absolutely clear that the Bill is not remotely trying to roll back the law on unfair dismissal or to reduce the protections against discrimination in the work place.
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) tried to identify the party political origin of every measure in the Bill. As it happens, it was a Conservative Government who set up employment tribunals, introduced employment rights and started the whole process that we now have. The intention was to provide a sensible, accessible and low cost way of resolving disputes and awarding compensation where some breach of employment rights had taken place. Over the years, the system has become legalistic. It has become almost habitual for anybody who loses their job to bring a claim, because there is very little risk to them and a great deal of encouragement to have a go. None of that is being tackled too directly by the Bill.
Addressing the power and cost of tribunals is much overdue. The principal fundamentals of employment rights are utterly beyond dispute nowadays. For the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central to claim that this Bill is a serious threat to the real principles underlying employment rights and achieves no important benefits shows that she has not met enough employers. When we talk to small employers about the problems of running a competitive business, most will rapidly start raising the problem and cost of claims before employment tribunals. The changes we propose could be criticised for being too modest, but they are certainly heading in the right direction. They should not invite a knee-jerk reaction from the Labour party, or anybody else, that nothing should be done to deregulate in that area and to remove unnecessary cost.
Similarly, on health and safety, absolutely nobody is suggesting, in this Bill or anywhere else, that we lower standards in this country when it comes to protecting the health and safety of the work force, or anybody else. We are not short of regulation in that area. Most of it will remain intact, but what is proposed here seems to be perfectly sensible. The biggest single change is to take away the burdens of health and safety legislation from self-employed people who are not in an occupation that can pose a threat to other people, as will be specified. It is absurd. Let us take a self-employed person, not one of those self-employed contractors in the business of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, but someone writing a novel in his cottage in the countryside in Dorset. He is a self-employed person. Is Labour going to argue passionately in Committee that he should be subject to health and safety at work legislation, which he is at the moment? Of course he is not likely to be sued unless he throws a book at somebody in a moment of bad temper, but even that is probably not a breach of the health and safety at work legislation. He is subject to inspection. He may have to pay regard to the guidance. I have taken an extreme example of what should be a harmless occupation—if he is a reasonable novelist.
There is a range of other self-employed people who may have to take professional advice on what impact the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 has on their particular activities. We are proposing to clarify that health and safety legislation applies to those people who are engaged in activities that could pose a risk to people other than themselves. Clarity will come when we produce information—as soon as we can in the course of the Committee, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy has said—on the specified sectors of the economy and specified occupations. A statutory burden will be lifted from a wide range of self-employed people who have been covered by it by accident.
Justice and Security Bill [Lords]
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Clarke of Nottingham(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
I was about to move on to that point, having made the general case. Every time I make concessions, they are pocketed and there is a fresh set of demands. I have known that to happen before, but never on the same scale as with this Bill. I will try to explain that when I get on to the matter.
Caroline Lucas
I see that the Minister is about to get some advice from behind him on habeas corpus cases. The advice we have received is that they are regarded as civil actions, and that habeas corpus could therefore be at risk in future.
The Minister should not get carried away with the idea that everybody supports the change. Some parties, such as the Green party, do not. That will not surprise him, but the Liberal Democrat conference did not support it, either. It talked about it as a serious risk to public trust and confidence. Many people out there do not support the change or think it is necessary, and I have yet to hear any real argument as to why it is.
Mr Clarke
I respect the hon. Lady’s sincerity, and she represents those who are against the whole policy. I have met such people outside—to use a flippant phrase, some of my best friends are human rights lawyers, and I have met people who say that the whole idea of CMPs is so bad that it is a lesser evil to keep paying money to the ever-mounting number of people coming forward. That is a judgment for the House to make, but the three political parties do not contain many members who agree with that, and I do not think the public agree with it. I would prefer to see a judge test the evidence and come to a conclusion.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Clarke of Nottingham(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
7. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on his proposed reform of access to justice for overseas victims of corporate harm.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Overseas victims of alleged corporate harm by UK international companies are, where appropriate, able to bring civil claims in the UK now, and that will continue to be the case following implementation of our reforms to civil litigation funding and costs. My officials and I are in contact with the Foreign and Colonial Office—[Laughter]—the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as and when necessary to discuss the impact of our proposed reforms to legal costs in this class of case in this country, the Commonwealth or the colonies.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the Secretary of State for that interesting reply. Notwithstanding his response, he will be aware that the United Nations Special Representative on Business and Human Rights has said that clauses 41 to 43 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will present a major barrier to justice for overseas victims of human rights abuses by UK multinationals, not least because of the significant increased cost burdens. Will he therefore withdraw those clauses from the Bill?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Clarke of Nottingham(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Following the revelations at the weekend that some quite shocking restraint methods are authorised in the “Physical Control in Care” manual for use by staff in secure training centres for children, will the Secretary of State introduce an explicit ban on corporal punishment in secure training centres and other youth offender institutions? Will he establish a public inquiry, chaired by a member of the judiciary, to establish the compatibility of practices in secure training centres with article 3 of the European convention on human rights?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
Of course, we keep under review the very careful guidance about the use of restraint techniques in those circumstances, and it is a matter of regret that such guidance has to be issued. However, the hon. Lady should bear it in mind that we are talking about children and young people, some of whom are much bigger than I am and who probably have a problem with drug abuse and a history of violent crime. The completely unarmed staff have to be given some instructions in how to control those young people when they are getting out of control and it is not always easy or possible to use totally restrained methods.