New Statesman & Society, leader 16 February 1996
The Scott report should provoke more than ministerial resignations. It makes imperative a radical shake-up of British foreign policy and a new strategy to wean British industry off its reliance on the arms trade
The timing of the release of the Scott report on arms sales to Iraq is just about as bad as it could be for New Statesman & Society – yet more proof that there really is an international conspiracy to ensure that the most important events happen between NSS going to press and its reaching the newsstands. At least Robin Cook was granted three hours' viewing of the report before publication: we have to comment sight unseen.
But that's enough grumbling about the lot of the weekly magazine. Things could be much worse. Because Sir Richard Scott was explicit from the start about what he was looking into, and because the inquiry hearings were held in public, we have a pretty good idea of what is at stake.
It will be a big surprise, for example, if the report is not critical of the way that government ministers modified guidelines on arms sales to Iraq and then misled public and parliament about having done so. Similarly, it is almost inconceivable that Scott will not have harsh words for the ministers who signed Public Interest Immunity certificates in an attempt to prevent businessmen charged with selling arms to Iraq proving in court that they did so with the full support of the government.
Most commentary on the report in the days immediately following publication will be on these two aspects, not least because there is a real possibility – if the opposition plays its cards right – of securing at least one ministerial resignation. Most vulnerable is Chief Secretary to the Treasury William Waldegrave, one of the ministers who lied about the arms-sales guidelines being changed, closely followed by Attorney General Sir Nicholas Lyle, who was responsible for the PII certificates that could have sent innocent men to jail. Less likely to have to go are the ministers who unquestioningly signed the certificates, although they will certainly be severely embarrassed by what Scott has to say.
And of course, it's quite right that the initial focus is on all this. Being found to have lied to parliament should be a resigning matter in any democracy, and the same goes for being discovered to have engaged (however unwittingly) in a course of action that might have ended in criminal convictions of innocent people. But we didn't need the Scott inquiry to tell us that Tory ministers were guilty of such behaviour over arms-to-Iraq: the evidence was incontrovertible before the inquiry was set up, and the guilty men should have gone long ago. Resignations now would, of course, be welcome, but it would be more in character for the Tories shamelessly to tough it out.
In the longer term, what is most important about Scott is the spotlight he has turned on the deep assumptions of British foreign and industrial policy in recent years. In particular, he has exposed the central role of the arms trade in Britain's relations with the outside world. If it was not clear before that the British government is prepared to do just about anything to secure overseas sales for British arms manufacturers, it is now.
So too is the short-sightedness of this whole approach and its corrupting effects on our political life. The arms-to-Iraq policy played a crucial role in encouraging Saddam Hussein to believe that there would be little resistance to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Itwas all paidfor by British taxpayers, through the Export Credit Guarantee Department. And all the decisions pertaining to it were taken in secret, without the knowledge of parliament.
The lesson is simple: nothing short of a transformation of the whole culture of British foreign policy is now warranted, and it has to start with tackling the arms trade. The first step is clearer and firmer rules governing the export of arms, with a ban on sales of military and military-related equipment to countries with poor human-rights records (which includes Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, currently two of Britain's biggest customers) and a much more effective licensing regime (not least to prevent the export of arms to blacklisted countries via others). Butthis is just a start. It needs to be accompanied by radical measures to destroy the culture of secrecy surrounding foreign affairs, and by a long-term industrial strategy to wean British manufacturers off their addiction to military markets.
This was just the sort of package that Labour promised during its "wilderness years". These days, it's more cautious. Although shadow foreign secretary Robin Cook has promised tougher guidelines on military exports, the idea of a policy to reduce British reliance on the arms business is just a little too dangerous for new Labour in the run-up to an election: too many jobs are at stake. Once it is in power, however, as British arms manufacturers are squeezed out of the shrinking world arms market by US competitors, silence will not be an option.
