Iraq Inquiry

Debate between Jack Straw and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I have no information about any of the process of declassification.

At the same time, my hope is that in the Maxwellisation process, which is only “currently” under way, no one is suggesting that any person who is the subject of provisional criticisms by the inquiry should not be given a proper opportunity to consider those and to respond, with sufficient time, proportionate to the volume and complexity of the material involved. It has, after all, taken the inquiry more than five years finally to produce its initial report, and as the Prime Minister has conceded, even that may not be complete.

Let me deal briefly with the claims that if the last Government had established an inquiry earlier, we would have had the report by now. There are two responses to that. The first, the obvious one, is that no one anticipated delays of the length that we have seen. The then Leader of the Opposition’s complaint, when the announcement was made in June 2009, was that the inquiry

“is due to take—surprise, surprise—until July or August 2010.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 25.]

That is after that general election. There was never the remotest suggestion from anyone, nor anticipation, that this report would not be out well before the 2015 general election.

Secondly, although they were the subject of controversy, the previous Government did have sound reasons for not establishing an inquiry earlier than we did, because British troops were heavily involved in combat operations at the time when earlier calls were made. Our rationale—

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The idea that the Iraq inquiry could not have been held during the Iraq war was shown to be a fallacy by Douglas Hogg at the time. He pointed out in the House that the inquiry into the Norway debacle happened during world war two. That was a smokescreen by the then Labour Government.

[Mr Straw]

With great respect, it was not. I have looked at the precedents. There can be inquiries in the middle of wars. I have looked, as it happens, at the precedents of the Dardanelles and the Crimea. A contemporaneous report of the conclusions of the report on the Crimea, which were read out to the House by the Clerk for one hour and 25 minutes, spells out that the difficulty of the task

“has been materially enhanced by the impossibility of summoning some persons by considerations…of State policy”,

and the committee admits that

“they have been unable satisfactorily to complete”

the inquiry.

The Franks inquiry was the subject of huge controversy at the time. I was in the House. Yes, it did report in six months, but it was a committee of Privy Counsellors, four of the six were former Labour and Conservative Cabinet Ministers, and one had been the former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence. Some said that they were parti pris. They took all their evidence in secret and, as far as I know, they published no documents to be declassified. It can be done in that way, but it is not acceptable these days.

There were many debates about a meaningful inquiry, for example the one in October 2006. At the time it was said,

“important operations are under way in Iraq. Major political decisions…and efforts to contain the insurgency appear to be in the balance…Any inquiry should be able to examine what happens in the coming months…as well as the events of recent years. To begin an inquiry now would therefore be premature.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2006; Vol. 451, c. 183.]

Those powerful words were the argument that we were advancing. What is interesting is that they were not offered by a Minister, but from the Opposition Front Bench by the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague).

I do not envy members of the inquiry the burden they have had to face. The unanticipated delays in the inquiry’s progress now make for additional pressures on the inquiry members themselves. In particular, as the months go past, wholly unfounded suspicions fall on the inquiry about a whitewash, and there is an equal and opposite concern that they may feel obliged to respond to these pressures by conclusions more starkly drawn than the evidence would allow.

Scotland and North-east England Post-2014

Debate between Jack Straw and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacNeil]

Croatia joined the EU in July 2013. When did Croatia join the euro?

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

You’d be obliged to join the euro.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. First, the concerns and issues that he is raising for the north-east of England also apply to all colleagues of all parties in the north-west of England. Secondly, on his central point—that we are better together—does he think that a far better comparison than the one used by the SNP representative here in Westminster Hall, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), which compared Scotland with Liechtenstein—

[Mr MacNeil]

Austria.

[Mr Straw]

Or Austria. The better comparison is to look at what happened in Germany. Three centuries ago, Bavaria and Prussia were at war—Catholic versus Protestant. They finally came together and I do not think that anybody, either in Bavaria or Prussia, would argue that those regions have not been able to maintain their distinctive identities and institutions while hugely benefiting from the fact that they are part of a single union.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I am glad to have the hon. Lady’s endorsement.

As we know, that was precisely the reason why, miraculously, of all the numbers that the coalition partners could have chosen, they originally alighted on the trigger level of 55%, because it would have given neither partner the ability to force an early general election against the wishes of the other.

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman says that there is no prospect of a general election for a number of years, but may I mischievously suggest that he shows greater faith in the coalition partners than they show in themselves and each other?

[Mr Straw]

I would like to have such faith. My faith in the Conservative party’s ability to pursue its own interests and survival and to consume other, minor parties—mainly ones beginning with ‘L’—is always high. My faith in the Liberal Democrat party’s ability to secure its own survival was never particularly strong and has completely plummeted following the coalition deal. Shortly after the election, a Conservative peer told me—literally licking his lips at the prospect—of how he would happily predict that the parliamentary Liberal Democrat party would go the same way as previous Liberal parties, once they had been embraced by the suffocating hug of the Conservative party, and disappear for a number of decades into oblivion. I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) is, if not quite licking his lips, smiling in approbation at the prospect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I am sure that that is a matter for the Chair, but I was simply trying to provide a comprehensive answer to the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke).

If we have a fixed-term Parliament, then of course the power of the Prime Minister to call an election is very significantly modified. I am concerned about the rights of this House. This House works by passing legislation, and all other matters, on the basis of votes by a simple majority. If we had a written constitution, which I am not against, we could have a separate debate about whether there should be some means or other of entrenching certain basic provisions. We are doing that in practice for some, but not others, by way of referendum, and for some, but not others, by way of convention and cross-party consensus. Meanwhile, however, regarding how this place works and good governance, we operate on the basis of a simple majority.

What we should be doing in the Bill is laying down a fixed term—I would prefer it to be four years, but it is going to be five—and then accepting the reality that circumstances could arise in which a Government of the day lost the confidence of the House. There is no alternative to that. No new Prime Minister could suddenly pop up and regain the confidence of the House. That being the case, there has to be an election, as happened after four and a half years of the ’74 to ’79 Government. It seems to me that those should be the only circumstances that should trigger an early election. I do not want there to be provision whereby, by some method or another, whether it is by a majority of a half, 55% or 67.5%, a package of Members can be got together in order to hold a general election. Nor do I think that those provisions would ever be used, because they are so complicated. There is no point in our passing legislation that has no significant purpose.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am genuinely listening with an open mind to what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about a simple majority in Parliament. However, how can we control a Prime Minister who has a majority in the House and whips his party to vote for his will? How can we maintain the power of the Parliament when the Prime Minister controls parliamentarians through the Whips?

[Mr Straw]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point as to whether a Prime Minister anxious for a general election could engineer a vote of no confidence. Even if these provisions stand as they are in the Bill, that would still be a technical possibility.

[Mr MacNeil]

It would be less likely.

[Mr Straw]

No, it would not. There is nothing in paragraph (c) that would, in law, prevent a Prime Minister from being party to an arrangement to secure his own demise and go for a general election. If these provisions go through, there will be nothing, in law, that can be done about that theoretical possibility.

Professor Robert Hazell, in evidence to the Lords Constitution Committee, made a very pertinent comment on this point when he said that political incentives should prove a force for stability. Whatever may have been appropriate in Germany in one very unusual case where the Chancellor did indeed arrange to move a motion of no confidence in his own Government, the prospect of a Prime Minister of this country coming to the House to move a motion of no confidence in his own Administration without suffering immediate popular and parliamentary derision, and a significant loss of votes at the poll that would then follow, is fanciful.

[Mr Straw]

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says and thank him for the compliment.

I have a number of rules that I try to follow in politics, one of which is that fancy tactics never work. This is a fancy tactic. I am sorry to say—it is not that I have anything personal against them—that one can see the Liberal Democrats, who were, as described by one of their members, a perpetual Opposition think-tank until they suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves in government, thinking up this wheeze on the basis that because it had happened in Scotland and, no doubt, in Latvia or Leichtenstein, it would work here. However, we have a more direct system of democracy; we may criticise, and I hope that we do. [Interruption.] I hear someone referring to Scotland. I happen to think, on reflection, that the relevant section in the Scotland Act is redundant, but different considerations applied at the time. One consideration—I mean this in no disobliging way to Scottish colleagues of all parties—is that the Scottish Parliament is a creature of this House, legally, whereas we have to be responsible for our own rules.

[Mr MacNeil]

Thanks for the SNP Government, then.

[Mr Straw]

It is the first time that I have ever been thanked for anything by a member of the Scottish National party. I hope that next April and May it says on every leaflet how deeply grateful the SNP is for the possibility and opportunity to serve in a Scottish Government and to enjoy all the rewards that have come its way from the money that the British people, of all parties, have provided.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacNeil]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the higher the percentage of parliamentarians required to trigger an election, the less likely it is that any Prime Minister will call an election of choice, because it will be more difficult for them?

[Mr Straw]

If a Prime Minister really wanted to call an election of choice, they would not worry about the two-thirds majority requirement, because they would be very unlikely to get it. They would instead go for a motion of no confidence.

By legislating for a fixed-term Parliament, we will establish a clear political norm that Parliaments last for five years. Leaving aside the argument about whether the term should be four or five years, I happen to support that principle, and I believe that is where the British people are. However, if the confidence of the House is lost, or the Government of the day simply give up and vote for a motion of no confidence, there must be an election. In the absence of that, there should not.

I have arranged to go and sit in Westminster Hall at 4.30 pm to listen to a debate on a matter of interest to all Members from east Lancashire. If this debate is not concluded by then, I hope I may be excused.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

Allow me to make progress.

Every single other constitutional measure that I can recall has been considered within a time scale that allowed for proper pre-legislative scrutiny, but the man who came to office preening himself on how he was to raise the standards of our politics has brushed all that aside—so much so that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, to which he is answerable, denounced his approach in unusually strong terms. It said:

“The Deputy Prime Minister has accurately described the Bill as ‘fundamental to this House and to our democracy’. We regret that the Government’s timetable has denied us an adequate opportunity to scrutinise the Bill before second reading.”

Had the Select Committee had time, it might have been able to prise from the right hon. Gentleman some better explanation for clause 9, which can only be described as the Liberal Democrat protection clause.

The essence of the Bill is that arithmetic trumps all—that it trumps community loyalties, historical ties, long-established county boundaries, mountains, and, indeed, the sea. In pursuit of arithmetic, for example, the views of the people of the Isle of Wight are wholly to be ignored. It is all in the name of an arithmetical formula, except in one area of the United Kingdom—the north of Scotland. There will be two protected constituencies: Orkney and Shetland, with 37,000 voters, and the Western Isles, with 22,000 voters—a third of the standard size. Our objection is not that Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles should have special considerations taken into account, but that they are the only areas that will be allowed to put their case about local needs and concerns.

Then we have the most bare-faced and partisan exemption of all: a new rule to allow seats that are more than 12,000 sq km in size—where this figure came from, I do not know—to exist even without the required quota of electors. Alongside that, another rule prevents any seat from exceeding 13,000 sq km. At present, only one seat on the mainland is bigger than 12,000 sq km—Ross, Skye and Lochaber, the seat of the former leader of the Liberal Democrats. Contrary to what the Deputy Prime Minister intimated, this is to protect a small seat with 24,000 voters—fewer than the average at which all other seats will be aimed. The only other seats that could conceivably be assisted by that rule are located in the Scottish highlands, and they are also Liberal Democrat-held.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I need to make some progress so that others can get in.

The Deputy Prime Minister labours under the delusion that arithmetic equals fairness and that—the north of Scotland excepted, of course—human and natural factors should be cast aside. The strength of that delusion was recently spelt out by the Electoral Reform Society, which said:

“Conservative proposals”—

we now, of course, have to add Liberal Democrat ones—

“mean that most constituencies will pay less regard to what most voters think of as community and natural boundaries, and change more frequently, destabilising the link between MPs and constituents. The United States has rigorous requirements for arithmetical equality of population in congressional districts, but the worst gerrymandering in the developed world.”

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

If the hon. Gentleman will excuse me, no.

In contrast, Margaret Thatcher’s 1986 system recognised the need for balance, which allowed local commissioners and the commission to take account of historical and natural boundaries, and density as well as sparsity of population, and to do so with the widest public acceptability. That ability to achieve balance has also meant that long-standing problems such as the under-registration of voters has had less impact on the final outcome. The problem of under-registration goes back to the 1990 poll tax. We sought to stabilise registration levels, but that poll tax legacy remains. The right hon. Gentleman must recognise that his reliance on arithmetic above all makes the problem of under-registration so acute and so potentially unfair.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between Jack Straw and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) for raising this very important issue. It is important not only to every colleague in the House, but, indirectly, to every constituent. It will become very apparent from this debate that concern about the structure and administration of the new allowance system goes right across the House. It is a matter of concern regardless of party or of previous experience. In his important remarks, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) said that IPSA was the first body ever to be created with power effectively to adjudicate over the conduct of Members of Parliament, and that is true. However, it is worth reflecting on why this time last year, the whole of the House of Commons, all three party leaders, and some of us caught up in a vice by those party leaders, were under such pressure to establish a separate and independent allowance system.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I want to raise one issue that probably has not been mentioned yet. We are talking about value for money for the public purse and the taxpayer. As a matter of public record, at the moment the cost of my accommodation in London is £252.54 a month. Under the IPSA system and the proposed changes, that figure will rise to about £1,200 or £1,400 a month, so the cost to the taxpayer will be four or five times greater. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that represents value for money?

[Mr Straw]

Of course I do not.