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Law Officers

My Lords, I agree. I am sorry, I am afraid I did not mention it given the brevity of the time. I must ask for an extra 30 seconds. In discussing the question of accountability, of course, Lord Silkin was exonerated. But my point is that the circumstances in which the decision was not taken were not ventilated in the same way and therefore, in a sense, the wrong point was being discussed—at least from the point of view of my argument here. But the most controversial issue is the advice of the Attorney-General. The Butler report has shown the many pressures on the Attorney-General—not only in this country but in the United States. I think I can safely say that in the case of Suez the wrong advice was given—or at least the wrong decision was taken—as a result of the Attorney-General’s case. It is a problem. The case of Iraq involved issues of international law, which is a very specialist area, and the Attorney-General has his own expertise, which may or may not be in international law. It is not reasonable to put a very distinguished public man in such a dilemma. Is he a legal adviser—a public servant representative of the public interest—whose observations on disclosure are protected; or is he a Minister of the Crown and subject to the normal pressures for disclosure? The idea that the Attorney-General is totally removed from politics—““a windowless monad””, as my old friend Geoffrey Marshall said in one of his books—and completely sealed off from political obligation may be true, but it is very hard to convince the public. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said in this connection, it has to be seen to be true; it has to be seen that law officers are completely detached. It is not good enough to say, as Edwards says in his standard book on the Attorney-General, that we can rely on the character and personal integrity of all these admirable people. I am sure we can, but that is not the point. The point is the institutional arrangements, not the quality of the individuals concerned. They should not be in this situation. The kinds of circumstances in Iraq, the legality of the war, the treatment of British prisoners in Guantanamo and the bombing policy should be detached from political considerations. In my view, there is much to be said for a law officer having the same degree of independence as the Governor of the Bank of England, who takes decisions about interest rates on professional grounds completely detached from political involvement. We should of course have a voice in Parliament but, in my view, that should be someone else. There is no time to discuss this, but I suggest that a department of justice or a Minister of justice, as obtains in many other countries, including the United States, would be far better. The Attorney-General has an ambiguous role which is hard to sustain. In my view, it is another argument for an unwritten constitution, and the whole course of the debate has confirmed my view. In the process of it we have had a very distinguished man and an historic office—which goes back to the reign of Edward I—unfairly tainted by dragging them into the most catastrophic area of British foreign policy since the time of Suez.