Christmas Adjournment

I would have thought that the passionate pleas of the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) for proper health care in his constituency do not sit very easily with the Secretary of State for Health saying that this is the best year yet for the national health service. The hon. Gentleman might want to read yesterday’s Hansard and reflect on the totally inadequate response of the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), to the Adjournment debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). I wish the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee well in his endeavours, but I think that he will have a lot of persuading to do of his ministerial colleagues. We will today adjourn for the Christmas recess and go back home to be with our loved ones and families. That is very different from what will happen to a large number of young men and women serving in our armed forces, especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to draw the House’s attention to yesterday’s inquest into the death of Sergeant Steve Roberts at which the coroner, Andrew Walker, said:"““To send soldiers into a combat zone without the appropriate basic equipment is, in my view, unforgivable and inexcusable and represents a breach of trust that the soldiers have in those in Government””." You will recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that back in March 2003, Sergeant Steve Roberts died because he did not have lifesaving body armour, which had been denied him by the then Secretary of State for Defence. Mr. Walker went on to say:"““Sergeant Roberts’ death was as a result of delay and serious failures in the acquisition and support chain that resulted in a significant shortage within his fighting unit of enhanced combat body armour, none being available for him to wear.””" The coroner had requested that the then Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), come to give evidence at the inquest. That did not happen. Instead, the Ministry of Defence sent David Williams, who is its director of capability, resources and scrutiny. Mr. Williams said that buying large numbers of body armour sets would have"““obviously indicated the department was pressing ahead with preparations for war when negotiations were still firmly at the diplomatic stage””." What an unbelievably cynical and outrageous remark to make. Does that mean that if we ever order more bullets and guns, we are telling our enemies that we might be about to engage in conflict? That was a totally inadequate response. I found it amazing that the current Secretary of State for Defence did not come to the Dispatch Box today to make a statement in light of the coroner’s remarks. It was quite unacceptable that the right hon. Member for Ashfield delayed for eight weeks before agreeing to the request that the body armour be made available. The right hon. Gentleman should be seriously considering his position. Frankly, having spent 25 years in this House, I do not see how he can remain as a Minister—you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the right hon. Gentleman still serves in a non-Cabinet capacity as Minister for Europe. The other place is considering the Government’s Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill. I would suggest that if this was the real world and the private sector, the right hon. Gentleman could well be up on a charge of corporate manslaughter. Part of the Bill, which will soon return to this House, says clearly that a person who has left their job and moved to another position has no excuse—that person can still be prosecuted. When the Deputy Leader of the House makes his winding-up speech, I hope that he will, at the very least, give us some assurance that the current Secretary of State for Defence will report back to the House when we return in January and that he will convey the concerns of many right hon. and hon. Members to the right hon. Member for Ashfield and ask him to consider his position. The situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq is grave. Many of us have been deeply uncomfortable with the fact that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have not been prepared to come to the House to brief us adequately in recent weeks. I am sure that you would agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the first duty of the House is to ensure that the people in this country have confidence in us and that we reflect people’s real concerns in our debates, questions and proceedings on statements in the House. You will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Prime Minister immediately flew to Washington—quite rightly, in my view—to be with President Bush straight after Secretary Baker published the Iraq Study Group report. The report is hugely significant. It could change the way in which we are conducting war in Iraq and it might have grave implications for our fighting men and women in Iraq. The Prime Minister saw fit to take questions at the press conference in Washington, but after returning to this country on the Friday, he made a speech in Birmingham on a completely unrelated subject. He was not prepared to come to the House to make a statement on developments following the publication of Secretary Baker’s report. That is quite unacceptable. Although I have huge respect for the Leader of the House—I realise that he was in a difficult position earlier in the week—I gently suggest to him, through his deputy, that to say rather vaguely that there will be a debate on Iraq some time before the end of January is just not good enough. When hon. Members questioned him about that debate and said, ““Presumably, of course, the Prime Minister will open that debate,”” the Leader of the House gave the clear impression that the debate would be opened by merely the Foreign Secretary. Again, I would suggest that that is not good enough. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will convey that to both the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister. This is an extremely awkward time in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I have already mentioned. I do not think that the House can ignore today’s Chatham House report, which says not only says that it was a terrible mistake for us to go into Iraq, but that the Prime Minister was woefully negligent to take so long to realise that the Taliban was resurging in Afghanistan. Most of us accept that the redeployment of allied troops from Afghanistan to Iraq at the time of the invasion of Iraq gave the Taliban a wonderful opportunity, which it has exploited to the full, to the huge detriment of the people of Afghanistan and our brave men and women who are fighting out there. I conclude by suggesting to the Deputy Leader of the House that he, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister take a long, cool look at the report that Dame Pauline Neville-Jones and her team published yesterday, which is a constructive critique of foreign and security policy in this country. Their conclusion was that it was high time that with our foreign policy and diplomacy there was a little humility and patience. That has been sadly lacking. It was particularly lacking in the characteristically arrogant remarks of the Foreign Secretary, who dismissed the Chatham House report of Victor Bulmer-Thomas as"““threadbare, insubstantial and just plain wrong””." Chatham House is a hugely influential and respected institution, which is totally non-political and unbiased. To have its report dismissed in such petulant, damning terms by the Foreign Secretary frankly says more about the Foreign Secretary than it does about Chatham House.