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Armed Forces (Parliamentary Approval for Participation in Armed Conflict) Bill

No, I do not agree at all. The public question the role of the House and they question what the people they elect to Parliament do. If they see their elected representatives deciding how the armed forces are to be deployed, that may help to make us more legitimate. A fifth objection to the Bill relates to self-defence. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright) that the issue needs to be considered in Committee. Recently, I had the joy of re-reading Robin Cook’s diary, ““The Point of Departure””. One of the reasons that it is crucial for statutory force to be given to the precedent established by the Iraq war is that, although on that occasion members of the Cabinet and a principled Leader of the House were determined to allow democratically elected representatives an active role in deciding whether our armed forces should be involved in the conflict, that may not always be the case. The Bill would enshrine constitutional safeguards leading to transparency, which would mean that we would not need to be dependent on the generosity or beliefs of those occupying the top positions in the Executive, but that irrespective of their personalities and beliefs, we and the other place—to be reformed, I hope, before too long—would have the right to debate and decide on the declaration of war and the use of our armed forces in an armed conflict. That must be a good thing, which is why I shall support Second Reading.