Sri Harmandir Sahib

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I fully accept my hon. Friend’s points. It is important, in doing everything we can to establish the truth when controversies such as this arise, to help in the process of being able to move on from these terrible events and to encourage people to live and work together successfully.

I will certainly look at my hon. Friend’s point about the release of documents. That is one of the issues that the review on the release of documents can cover, because questions arise over when documents should be withheld and how the 30-year rule, which is to become the 20-year rule, is implemented. Those are fair questions that can be looked at in Sir Alex Allan’s review. We all want to ensure that the same reassuring transparency evident in the Cabinet Secretary’s report continues as further documents are released in future years.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I must take issue with the Foreign Secretary’s conclusions. In 1984, the Commons was told that a march to commemorate the thousands of massacred Sikhs was cancelled on public order grounds, but newly revealed Cabinet minutes show the real reason. They state:

“In view of the importance of the British political and commercial interests at stake, it would be necessary to explore every possibility of preventing the march from taking place. Export contracts worth £5 billion could be at stake.”

In the year in which we will commemorate the loss of 80,000 Sikhs in the 1914-18 war, is it not the least we can do to apologise to the Sikhs who were misled in 1984?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman should be clear about what the Cabinet Secretary is saying in this report, because he is making a different point about different events.

[Mr Watson]

I’m not.

[Mr Hague]

By definition, he is. Let me explain. What the Cabinet Secretary is saying in his report is that there is no evidence in the files that the provision of UK military advice in February 1984 was linked to defence sales or any other policy issue.

[Mr Watson]

Did you look at the Cabinet minutes?

[Mr Hague]

I can only explain the facts as they have been presented by the Cabinet Secretary. The evidence from the 23,000 documents is that there was no such link. The Cabinet Secretary is not saying that such matters were not of importance in wider relations or other matters of policy between India and the UK. He is saying that on this issue, that is what the documents show. We all have to work from what the documents show.