Tony Baldry (Banbury): The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) in her opening and concluding comments, made it clear why the Government would be wise to accept this motion. This issue is about the integrity of the Government and the trust that people place in them. The right hon. Lady, who until recently was a member of the Cabinet, has laid the most serious allegations against the Prime Minister. In her opening comments she said, in terms, that the House had been misled by the Prime Minister. That is from a person who, until recently, had been a leading member of the Cabinet. I worked with her in my capacity as Chairman of the Select Committee on International Development and, like all members of the Committee, I know the care with which she carried out her duties. We are confident that she would not have resigned from that post without good reason. After all, she was the first Secretary of State for International Development and had built up the Department over six years. We are all professional career politicians who know that people do not surrender such jobs unless they have some real reason of substance. The right hon. Lady has given us some insight into what that might be.

We are also concerned about the integrity of the Government when we see the way in which they have responded to the stories in the past couple of days. It is the most bizarre action for No. 10 to put up the Leader of the House to make the allegations that he has made in a newspaper article and on the "Today" programme this morning. Everyone in the House knows that the Leader of the House, under any Government, is a senior member of the Cabinet, and he would not have made those press comments unless they had been fully cleared with No. 10 and with the machinery of government as a whole. We all know that the "Today" programme puts in bids for Ministers. We often hear John Humphrys and others saying that so and so was invited on to the programme and that they refused to come. The Leader of the House showed no reticence about going on the "Today" programme this morning to repeat his comments, allegations and accusations against the intelligence service.

The purport of that and the reason why Members are concerned is that it gives the impression of a Government trying to spin away a story about whether the House has been misled by suggesting that all of this is down to some rogue intelligence officer who has been briefing journalists such as Andrew Gilligan and others. They contend that that really is what the story is about, and not about the concerns of the right hon. Members for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and for Birmingham, Ladywood that the House has been misled over a period of time.

I hope that the Government understand that if they cannot start to reassure our constituents about such issues, confidence not only in them, but in the machinery of government, will simply leach away. Many of our constituents will be scratching their heads about other matters this evening. We repeatedly heard the Prime Minister say at the Dispatch Box today that the reason why weapons of mass destruction had not been found was that the search had only just begun and the team had only just started its work. I ask those on the Treasury Bench about the large numbers of my constituents who wrote to me and visited me in constituency surgeries. They came from church groups and other groups, and included other concerned individuals, and they lobbied hard before the conflict, saying that the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time to find weapons of mass destruction and establish whether they existed. How on earth will the Government and the Prime Minister explain to those people�my constituents and those of every Member of this House�that there was insufficient time to look for weapons of mass destruction, so it was necessary to go to war and remove a regime by force of arms, but some eight weeks later, when no weapons of mass destruction have purportedly been found, the Prime Minister's excuse is that we have only just started our work? How on earth can those claims be reconcilable? The suspicion among large numbers of our constituents is that this is a question not so much of weapons of mass destruction as of words of mass deception used by the Prime Minister and others.

Mr. Mark Hendrick (Preston): It is a question not of eight weeks, but of about 12 years in which the United Nations has been trying to get the weapons out of Iraq. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that he does his constituents a disservice and insults their intelligence, as the Prime Minister made that clear today.

Tony Baldry: I think that the hon. Gentleman was not listening to what the Prime Minister said. He was asked repeatedly why weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq. The hon. Gentleman and every hon. Member can read Hansard tomorrow, but it is clear that, on numerous occasions, the Prime Minister said at the Dispatch Box today that the reason why the weapons had not been found was that the new inspection team had only just started its work and could hardly be expected to have found them in such a short period.

The hon. Gentleman misses the key point, to which I shall return, as it is very important. The key point is the integrity of the Government and the machinery of government. That is why it is vital that there is an inquiry such as that proposed in the motion. I also find it bizarre that the Foreign Secretary should be so dismissive of judicial inquiries. I speak as a former Minister who was the subject of a judicial inquiry almost instantly after this Government came to office. I had been a Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and no sooner were the Government were through the door of No. 10 than they set up a judicial inquiry into the handling of BSE�

Mrs. Browning: Led by the Master of the Rolls.

Tony Baldry: Yes. We made no complaint about the judicial inquiry to which we were subject, but at no time did the Foreign Secretary or other Ministers mention the reasons that they have given at the Dispatch Box today for not conducting a judicial inquiry into such matters. Only when the issue starts to touch on the integrity of Ministers in this Government, and of the Prime Minister himself and other key Ministers, do the Government become so reticent about the idea of a judicial inquiry.

The Foreign Secretary made it clear today that co-operation with the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs will be pretty minimal. As a Select Committee Chairman, I had not appreciated until today that the answers that we are given depend on our security clearance. I am not quite sure what my security clearance is or whether one's security clearance as a Member of this House changes when one ceases to be a Minister. I seem to recall that when I was appointed as a junior Foreign Office Minister, like the Minister for Europe, I was given what was known as my powers, of which I was very proud. They were purportedly signed by the Queen. When I took them home and showed them to my children, my daughter, with great perspicacity, said, "The Queen doesn't really know you, does she, daddy?"

It is clear that the Foreign Affairs Committee will be told only what it is convenient for the Government to tell it, and the excuse will be given that it cannot be told certain things on security grounds. That was the explanation that was given this afternoon. None of us doubts the integrity of members of the Intelligence and Security Committee�they are all very honourable and senior Members of this House�but it is by definition a Committee that meets in secret and is largely dependent on what the Government choose to give it.

The Government should look themselves in the face and consider the damage that will be done to the machinery of government, given the allegations made by two senior former Cabinet Ministers who were so recently involved in the day-to-day handling of these issues, if they seek to brush matters of such importance under the carpet and refuse to have a full, proper, independent judicial inquiry.