Governance of Britain

My Lords, I will refer to the point that I was going to make briefly earlier when the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was speaking. I apologise if I was breaking the protocol of the House in interrupting him; I thought that I was in order. I would like to strongly take up the point that my noble friend Lord Kingsland made not just on consulting Parliament in the case of going to war, but actually seeing that the right information comes to Parliament first. I remember very well—I will never forget it—the debate in the House of Commons on whether we should effectively go to war with Iraq without waiting for the second United Nations decision or approval on that. I sat upstairs listening to the Prime Minister’s remarks. I was swayed by the statement that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had weapons of destruction that could be launched within 45 minutes and that would have a radius that certainly enabled them to hit Israel, and probably to go a lot further. Because of that information, I told a great many people who I saw afterwards that, having listened to it, I was persuaded totally by the case; but as it turned out later that information was totally wrong. Like my noble friend Lord Kingsland, I have had no opportunity to read these documents; but surely the question of making certain that the right, fair and impartial information gets to Parliament before there is any question of declaring war is at the heart of the matter.