Parliament: Waging War (Constitution Committee Report)

My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, who was a member of the Select Committee. In my view, the committee produced a sensible, pragmatic report with a good British evolutionary approach to the issue of executive powers in the deployment of our Armed Forces. In principle, I find myself in full support of finding ways of ensuring that Parliament has a stronger role in scrutiny. Therefore, I think that all the report’s recommendations should be taken seriously and moved forward, but that we should proceed with care and caution. Of course, as has been pointed out by, for example, my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig, our debate today and the report are rather coloured by the events of Iraq. Of course, since the Second World War there has been a wide range of very differing conflicts: from Korea to Suez, to Kuwait—even in 1961, when we had to deploy forces there to prevent an invasion by General Qasim—to a later Kuwait invasion, to Iraq and to the Falklands, of which I have some experience. They are balanced by operations of a more peacekeeping nature in places such as the Lebanon, the Balkans and Sierra Leone. All that points to the fact that conflicts take place in very different circumstances, and they need to be handled by Governments in different ways and with a flexible approach. To my mind, we need to take into account two major factors. First, before we commit our Armed Forces to the danger of losing their lives, there is a need for the nation to be united behind them. It is not just the case that it should be a just war but the servicemen should know that the majority of the nation supports them. After the Falklands conflict, I was struck by how many servicemen told me that the unity of the nation behind what they were trying to do mattered enormously to them. That was in sharp contrast to Suez, when I happened to be a national serviceman, and, more recently, to Iraq. A lack of unity puts our forces in an exceedingly difficult situation. In my view, all that adds to the argument forthe need for the Government of the day to carry Parliament and the nation with them. They needto disclose to Parliament the maximum possible amount of information, consistent with security considerations, in order to mobilise support for action. As my noble and gallant friend Lord Bramall stressed, in these circumstances, the onus is on the Government to demonstrate their clarity of purpose and objectives in going into a conflict and theoverall reasons for deployment, rather than micromanagement in operational matters. A well informed Parliament can help to sharpen the Government’s aims and objectives. It is in the Executive’s interests to carry Parliament as bestthey can. However, that aim has to be reconciled with one or two other factors. First, there is the type of conflict. Reference is made in the report to conflicts of necessity—self-defence. My experience was of the Falklands. That invasion, as we all know, was sudden and unexpected, and it required an immediate response. The decision had to be taken to recover those islands before Parliament could meet the next day—on the Saturday—to debate those issues. On that occasion it mattered less because, by and large, there was unity in Parliament behind the Government in the decision to recover the islands. You may have another set of circumstances—you almost certainly will—when the Government, in making their case to Parliament, will, in the interests of security, have to withhold certain information, intelligence and so on. That means that often the Parliament at that time will not be in a position to make a complete judgment on the Government’s decision. That can come only later, with experience. I shall recall to the House an experience of mine before I joined the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in resigning from the Foreign Office, where I was a Minister of State, to demonstrate carrying the responsibility for the disastrous catastrophe that took place in the Falklands. Two weeks before the invasion, there was an incident in South Georgia, which produced a dangerous situation. We needed to try to settle the dispute in South Georgia peacefully and diplomatically. But throughout the period in which we tried to do that, Parliament—understandably, I suppose I should say—was demanding statements of what we were going to do and what deployment of forces there would be in the south Atlantic. As a result of that pressure, the situation became more and more tense. That is an example of Parliament getting too involved in issues to do with tactical considerations and deployment. Secondly, there was public speculation in Parliament and in the press that nuclear-powered submarines had been sent to the south Atlantic. If Galtieri was considering invasion, the very news of that speculation would have urged or pressed him to bring the invasion forward. I use that experienceto demonstrate that there are real dangers at that stage—just before a conflict, and even when it begins—in disclosing certain information. It all boils down to the system and thoroughness of accountability of the Executive to Parliament. Governments have to decide and take their decisions, but in doing so they must realise that they face an effective system of accountability and that it is in their interests to carry Parliament with them. Surely Iraq and Suez should be a warning to any Prime Minister to act with care and restraint and to know that he must carry Parliament with him; he must be aware that appropriate Select Committees will be monitoring all the time and that there will be scrutiny not only before deployment but during and after deployment. Something that has not been mentioned is that, after every major conflict, there should be an independent inquiry that reports to Parliament. The Franks inquiry on the Falklands did that job very effectively. No one could have been more independent than Lord Franks. It is important for the nation and it is important for Parliament to have that prospect of debating the experience of a conflict. I find that I agree with paragraph 63 of the report, in particular, which says that, "““too strict a template for action should not be imposed on government””." Indeed, there was mention of Professor Freedman, but he expressed the view that, "““it would be unwise to create a very strict framework, although he recognised that any government which did not take Parliament into its confidence as much as possible could well pay for it””." We must recognise that circumstances vary and that there has to be flexibility, but we must strengthen the ability of Parliament to scrutinise government decisions at every stage.