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BA Flight 149

I thank the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) for giving me this opportunity to try to answer the various questions he has raised about BA flight 149 on 1 and 2 August 1990. The House will be aware that the hon. Gentleman has alleged on several occasions, in the House and elsewhere, and—as he has made clear—in correspondence with the current Government, that the British Government of the day in 1990, knowing that the invasion was about to take place, negligently allowed British Airways flight 149 to land in Kuwait after it had been invaded by Iraq. He has also alleged that the Government did that to facilitate the entry of UK ““special operatives”” to Kuwait, and as a result endangered the passengers and crew on the flight. The hon. Gentleman has linked two issues. The first concerns the treatment of the passengers and crew. No one is in any doubt that they were treated appallingly, as were many people—not least the people of Kuwait. I say that, speaking as someone who was a regular visitor to Kuwait—both as a Foreign Office Minister and subsequently as Secretary of State for Defence. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity of visiting Kuwait, but a significant proportion of that country’s small population disappeared during that period and I regularly visited the museum that was established by the Government and met many people who had lost— It being half-past Two o’clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put. Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Liz Blackman.]