EU Council and North Africa

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As ever, my right hon. and learned Friend brings a mixture of experience and precision to this issue. We were told by the previous Government what they did not want, which was the death of al-Megrahi in a Scottish prison, but we were not told by the previous Government what they did want, which was the facilitation of his release. That comes over, time and again. The most powerful point that my right hon. and learned Friend makes is this: in the end, that man was convicted of the largest mass murder in British history, which should have been the thought coursing through ministerial veins and brains when Ministers wrote those memos and made those speeches.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I fully understand the Prime Minister’s concern and that of colleagues on both sides of the House about the timing and circumstances of the release of Mr Megrahi. However, having read the Cabinet Secretary’s report in full, which I have here, may I say that it was wrong of the Prime Minister to elide quotations from the Cabinet Secretary’s conclusions with his own gloss, implying that those were indeed the conclusions? As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has spelt out, and contrary to the implication that the Prime Minister has given to the House, the Cabinet Secretary concluded that nothing in the material that he reviewed contradicts anything that my right hon. Friend the former Foreign Secretary told this House on 12 October in a detailed statement or anything that my right hon. Friend the former Prime Minister has said at any time on this issue. The conclusions back up the continued assertion made by the former Prime Minister, the former Foreign Secretary and me, as the Prime Minister has finally admitted through gritted teeth, that there was no pressure from BP on the Scottish Government, that we acted properly at all times and, moreover, that at no stage did we ever suggest to the Scottish Government what decision they should take.

On so-called facilitation, let me read to the House the very next sentence. It

“amounted to: proceeding with ratification of the PTA”,

which was in hand anyway,

“explaining to Libya in factual terms the process for application for transfer under a PTA…and informing the Scottish Government that there was no legal barrier to transfer under the PTA”.

That was all known before and does not contradict what my right hon. Friend the former Foreign Secretary said at the time.

[The Prime Minister]

Let me make two points gently to the right hon. Gentleman. First, although the Cabinet Secretary rightly, in my view, finds that nothing in this report contradicts what the then Foreign Secretary did say, my point is purely this: this is about what was not in that statement. That is because when we look at what is in the report, we find that it is very clear that there were all sorts of things—facilitations and game plans—that we were not made aware of.

I do not want, in any way, to misquote what Gus O’Donnell has done in a very good report. The conclusions in paragraph 34 state:

“Policy was therefore progressively developed that HMG should do all it could, whilst respecting devolved competences, to facilitate an appeal by the Libyans to the Scottish Government for Mr Megrahi’s transfer under the PTA or release on compassionate grounds… as the best outcome for managing the risks faced by the UK.”

All right hon. and hon. Members will be able to make up their mind whether what we were told by the previous Government was a full and complete picture. Everyone can make up their mind and I am pretty sure what a reasonable person will come to.