Parliament: Waging War (Constitution Committee Report)

My Lords, first, I join noble Lords in expressing my genuine and profound gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, for this report and for the debate he has procured. Perhaps I may say more widely that under his leadership the Constitution Committee of the House has made a genuine and profound contribution to the constitution of this country. Every Member of the House joins me in thanking the noble Lord for that contribution. Secondly, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, and to every member of the committee for the delay in the Government’s response. There were considerable internal discussions about the response. I have made that apology directly to the committee, but I repeat it in the Chamber today. I should make it clear that the Government did not in any way intend any disrespect to an excellent report, which was balanced in the sense that it set out the arguments pro and con. It took evidence from a large number of distinguished people. It also took evidence from myself and other Ministers. I hope that we set out with clarity—despite the very obliging remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, who I am delighted to see in his place—the Government’s position. In deference to the remarks made today, I shall try to deal with the detail of the report with a degree of fullness and try to set out the Government’s position. As was made clear, this is an incredibly important issue. I completely accept the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, that this is important because it is about the circumstances in which we ask our Armed Forces to act on our behalf and put their lives at risk. It has an importance even beyond that in the context of what are the right democratic arrangements for those deployments to occur. The report sets out accurately the current perceived constitutional position. The deployment power to use troops in war or armed force is the royal prerogative power vested in the Prime Minister who, as the report says at paragraph 12, would not dream of exercising without taking advice before doing so. The report rightly states: "““The power to deploy the armed forces is not absolute. The Government are of course subject to certain constitutional constraints, including the general principle of their accountability to Parliament for the exercise of their powers””." As a matter of practice, in recent years—the past 100 years—the deployment of troops has almost invariably involved Parliament being both consulted and, sometimes, voting on it. Five of the most recent occasions on which armed force has been used are Korea in 1950 when there was a vote and the Falklands War when there was no vote. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, movingly and vividly described the events leading up to the parliamentary debate, as did the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. There was no vote, although I anticipate—I was not there and I defer to the noble Lord, Lord Luce— that there was broad parliamentary support for intervention in relation to the Falklands and no need for a vote. As I understand the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Luce, he said that the need to go to Parliament might have been positively damaging in the build up to the Falklands because of the issues in relation to South Georgia. Therefore, there were no votes on the Falklands, Kosovo and Iraq 1, in which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, was involved. On Iraq 2, which in a sense informs this great debate, there was a vote and a resolution. Precisely that for which the convention argues occurred on that occasion. That is the current position. The question posed by the report is that, despite that current position, should there nevertheless be something that the committee calls a convention? This convention comes in the form of paragraph 110 of the report, which says: "““(1) Government should seek Parliamentary approval … by the laying of a resolution … if it is proposing the deployment of British forces outside the United Kingdom … (2) In seeking approval, the Government should indicate the deployment’s objectives, its legal basis, likely duration and, in general terms, an estimate of its size; (3) If, for reasons of emergency and security, such prior application is impossible, the Government should provide retrospective information within 7 days of its commencement or as soon as it is feasible, at which point the process in (1) should be followed; (4) The Government, as a matter of course, should keep Parliament informed of the progress of such deployments and, if their nature or objectives alter significantly should seek a renewal of the approval””." That is the convention that is argued for. It is the Government’s position that the current arrangements reflect the constitutional position. There is more than sufficient parliamentary involvement in that, and it would be both wrong and damaging to change the position. Finally, on the Government’s position, Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: "““Now that there has been a vote on these issues so clearly and in such controversial circumstances, I think it is unlikely that except in the most exceptional circumstances a government would choose not to have a vote in Parliament. I think Tony Blair would join me in saying that, having put this decision to Parliament, people would expect these kinds of decisions to go before Parliament””." My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in the Government’s response: "““The fact of the matter is that I cannot conceive of a situation in which a Government … is going to go to war—except in circumstances where militarily for the security of the country it needs to act immediately—without a full parliamentary debate””." Both my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister set out the current position. Are we right to create what the noble Lord, Lord Nortonof Louth, says that we cannot create—namely, a convention—because we cannot create it, or is the position adequately covered by the current arrangements? I believe that it is, and I think that there are considerable arguments against the idea of making it more rigid in the way that is suggested by the Constitution Committee. I shall refer first to the question of what effect such a convention would have on operational efficiency. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, say that it would have no material effect on operational efficiency. Noble Lords will have read the report and seen the summary of the evidence of Sir Rupert Smith and the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Boyce and Lord Vincent of Coleshill. They will also have heard today the extraordinarily powerful speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. It is entirely a matter for this House to judge which of the contradictory pieces of evidence they find the more persuasive. I do not express a view about which is more persuasive. I think, however, that we would be extraordinarily unwise to change the current position in the light of that disagreement. Secondly, there is the question of coalition-building. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craigof Radley, referred to this and to the need for countries—he was speaking about Iraq 1 and the Falklands—to be able to make arrangements and form a coalition. The speech that he gave in the House was reflected in the evidence to the same effect which the Minister for the Armed Forces gave to the committee. The Minister said that the Executive’s ability to make those sorts of coalition arrangements was in sharp contrast to the inability of countries such as the Netherlands to make the same sort of arrangements because of their parliamentary process. My third point, which the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, made in a slightly different way from the way in which I am about to make it, is that of course there should be full parliamentary involvement. There needs to be reporting, and there need to be votes, if there is any issue, although I do not say that there should be votes when there is no issue. However, there needs to be clarity about where the responsibility lies. Although the noble Lord alleged that Parliament was misled, which I dispute, everyone in this debate accepted that the Executive will in many cases for entirely legitimate reasons not be able to lay all the facts before Parliament. In those circumstances, therefore, why muddy the waters and say that, actually, Parliament is responsible. Involve Parliament as much as you possibly can—as this Government and all previous Governments have done in recent years, because they have to—but do not impose a rigid convention that was invented without reference to what the noble Lord, Lord Luce, was talking about. I hope that the noble Lord will not regard this as impertinent, but I thought that his support for the committee’s conclusion was slightly lukewarm in this sense, and that he was saying that it was all well and good in the right case to do what the convention says, but that there will be other circumstances—he was not talking only about an emergency—in which the right course is not to have a convention but, in the interests of the country, to have some other means of seeking parliamentary approval. The noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, started off by setting out his concerns but then said that he was persuaded by the report. I venture to suggest, however, that he too had some considerable anxieties about the way in which it would work.