Scott Report

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The Scott Report (the Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions) was a judicial inquiry commissioned in 1992 after reports of arms sales in the 1980s to Iraq by British companies surfaced. The report was finally published in 1996 and was named after Sir Richard Scott, then a Lord Justice of Appeal. Much of the report was secretive, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 now in place would have gone some way towards preventing the clandestine sections. Information which if in the public hands, it was speculated, would reveal government incompetence.

The Scott Report represents possibly the most exhaustive study produced to that date of the individual responsibility of ministers to Parliament. Scott comments on the difficulty of extracting from departments the required documents (some 130,000 of them in all) and notes how Customs and Exise could not find out what Ministry of Defence export policy was and how intelligence reports were not passed on to those who needed to know. The Economist commented that "Sir Richard exposed an excessively secretive government machine, riddled with incompetence, slippery with the truth and willing to mislead Parliament".

Scott identified three main areas of democratic concern:

First, the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act 1939 was emergency legislation passed at the outbreak of the Second World War. It allowed the government to issue regulations which were not subject to resolutions in Parliament, for the duration of the emergency, which would make it a criminal offence to export particular goods to particular countries. While the Act should have lapsed in 1945 it somehow continued for another half century, allowing a Government to make export law without scrutiny.

Second, Public Interest Immunity certificates were issued during the Matrix Churchill trial, as a result of which innocent men were in danger of being sent to prison because the government would not allow the defence counsel to see the documents that would exonerate their clients. While some of these contained potentially sensitive intelligence material, many were simply internal communications: the certificates were intended to protect the Ministers and civil servants. Scott states:

The government is entirely frank in its desire to continue using "class" claims in order to protect communications between ministers and civil servants from disclosure in litigation. One argument put forward is that, unless these communications are protected, the necessary candour between ministers and civil servants will suffer. I have to say that I regard this "candour" argument … as unacceptable.

Third, was the failure of ministerial accountability, the principle that "for every action of a servant of the crown a minister is answerable to Parliament".

[edit] Publication

The publication of the report was seen by many as the nadir of the 1990s Conservative governments of the UK. Prior to publication those ministers who were criticised were given the opportunity to comment and request revisions. The report was published, along with a press pack which included carefully selected extracts which avoided the most damning criticisms of the Government, at 3:30pm, too late for an extensive analysis in the following day's papers. A set-piece debate was held, and the the opposition were given, according to Robin Cook, just two hours to read the million-plus words, during which scrutiny they were supervised and prevented from making copies. Finally, the Prime Minister, John Major, stated that a vote against the Government was in effect a vote of no confidence (ensuring that Conservative MPs would not vote against), while a vote for, was a vote exonerating the Government of any wrongdoing. The Government won the vote 320-319 despite what was widely accorded a masterful performance by Robin Cook in opposition.