Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Nick Boles Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

I observe that in this debate, for all that it has become heated at times, we agree on much. We all agree that decisions to take military action must be brought to the House and explained to the House in detail as soon as possible after they have been made. We all agree that the Prime Minister and other Ministers must be held to account by the House, as often as the House wants, for the decisions that they have made in regard to that military action. We all, I think, agree that decisions on substantial long-term military engagements—what I would call, borrowing a phrase from President Obama, “wars of choice”—must be brought to the House in advance of the commitment. Although many of us believe that the decision made in 2003 to invade Iraq was a mistake, I do not think that there is anyone here who believes that it was a mistake for the House to debate that decision and be given an opportunity to vote on it. So we agree on that principle as well.

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend is making an extremely convincing speech, but he is quite wrong on that point. I think that the great mistake in 2003 was that Tony Blair did come to the House, and did secure political cover for himself by allowing a vote. Had we not had a vote, it would have been much easier for many of us to hold him to account thereafter.

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I heard him make it earlier, and I think it is a very interesting point. I suppose my conclusion is that it is simply not realistic to think that a major modern democracy can invade another country where there is no immediate national security threat and where no immediate national interest is at risk without coming to its Parliament, explaining its strategy and receiving approval for it, although I do accept my hon. Friend’s argument that that subsequently limited the power of Parliament to hold the Government to account for their decision.

Let me now briefly focus on what I think are the two points of disagreement. We disagree on the question of which military actions should not require a prior vote in Parliament, and we disagree on the question of what form the convention should take. Should it be statute, or should it be a convention that is unwritten, as so many of our conventions are?

On the first question, I think we would all accept that if troops landed on the beaches of the Isle of Wight, as was mentioned earlier, the Prime Minister should be able to act that very night without a prior vote in Parliament. I suspect that if one of our NATO allies were attacked—let us say that Russian troops rolled into Estonia on a Saturday afternoon—many of us, although I am not sure about the Leader of the Opposition, would accept that fulfilling our duties under the NATO treaty should also not require prior parliamentary authorisation through a vote.

However, I do believe that there are difficult cases. I believe that we saw—and I saw, and I voted—one of the most difficult cases when we were last asked whether we should respond to a chemical weapons attack by President Assad on his own people in Syria. That, of course, was the vote that took place in 2013. My contention is that we made a fundamental error. We should never have held that vote. It is not just that we were wrong to vote, as we did collectively in Parliament, to reject action; the Government, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were wrong to bring that issue to Parliament and ask for a vote, for the very reasons that have been laid out so well by Members, particularly those with military experience.

This Parliament did not have the information necessary to make that decision. This Parliament could not share in the intelligence information about what President Assad was up to. As a result, Assad saw that we would not act when he used those chemical weapons, and what did he then do? As the leader of the Liberal Democrats has pointed out, he has used chemical weapons serially—not just on four or five occasions, but on many occasions since then—because he saw that the west would never do anything about it.

The reason the United States did not do anything about it, and the reason France did not do anything about it, was the vote that had taken place in this House. They were all going to act until we were given a vote, which we should not have been given, to question the Prime Minister’s judgment that action should be taken. We rejected his advice, and as a result the Syrian people have suffered much, much more. We made a fundamental error that cost many hundreds of lives of Syrian families and Syrian children. This is not an arcane debate about process; this goes to the heart.

That is why I urge Members to resist the suggestion that we should put these matters into legislation. The genius of our constitution is that it is not written down. The genius is that it is based on convention, and the genius of convention is that convention can evolve in response to actual facts. It is true that it has now become a convention that Parliament has a vote on military action in many circumstances. Through the decision made by this Prime Minister last weekend, that convention is rightly evolving again to re-establish the idea that when a major humanitarian crisis takes place, she should be able to act, and come to Parliament afterwards.

--- Later in debate ---

That this House has considered Parliament’s rights in relation to the approval of military action by British Forces overseas.

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Gentleman really feels that it is timely and that the nation needs to hear him—I am not sure it really does—then blurt it out briefly, man!

[Nick Boles]

Forgive me, Mr Speaker, but I was here when you ruled on the point of order from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) on the question of the Leader of the Opposition laying a motion and then urging people to vote against it. This is not the first time that has happened. I would appreciate some guidance on when that is permissible and when it is not.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. First of all, it is not the first time it has happened. Secondly, it is entirely orderly. Thirdly, there is a widespread misunderstanding of the constitutional position. The position is this: votes should follow voice. The Speaker collects the voices before deciding whether a Division is required. A Member must not vote in opposition to the way in which he or she shouted. That is not the same as a Member being obliged to vote in a particular way on the basis of having moved or spoken to a motion. There are historical precedents that demonstrate that Members often move motions to facilitate debate and, for a variety of reasons, there is no breach of order. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman. I say that on the basis, to some degree, of my own knowledge, buttressed and reinforced by having consulted the scholarly craniums of our expert Clerks. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman and to the House. [Interruption.] It may be long, but it has the advantage of being true. [Interruption.] Odd? I apologise to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). Well, I am odd! We are all odd. It may be slightly odd, but it has the advantage of being factually correct as a description of our arrangements. We will leave it there. No further gesticulations in the direction of people thought to be odd will be required at this stage of our proceedings, but I am grateful to the right hon. Lady and to the hon. Gentleman, who flagged up an important point.