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Government Information Systems
21. Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley): What steps have been taken to improve the security of Government information systems. [125456]
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Douglas Alexander): All Government information systems are required to meet specified security standards, which are regularly reviewed in the light of the prevailing threats. To ensure that Government Departments' most critical information processes are adequately protected, Departments are adopting the international standard for information security management.
Ms Munn : I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Many private-sector organisations are involved with the public sector in these information systems. What assurance can my hon. Friend give that the partnerships between the private and public sectors are strong and will be maintained in a way that will ensure the security of the information?
Mr. Alexander: My hon. Friend raises an important point. In October 2002, the central sponsor for information assurance was established by the Government. The CSIA works with both the public and private sectors, and international counterparts, to help safeguard the nation's IT and telecommunications services. We need to be able to tap in effectively to the expertise that exists in the private sector, as well as to that in the public sector. This is, of course, a very serious issue.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam): Does the Minister agree that an ability to audit the source code of key software applications is an important element in securing Government information systems? Do the Government prefer to have accessible source code for their security systems?
Mr. Alexander: The issue of source codes is being considered across Government at the moment, in terms of both open-source software and the more general point of security that has been raised. I shall be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman on the specific point that he has raised today.
Regulatory Reform Action Plan
22. Mr. Andrew Love (Edmonton): What progress has been made in implementing the regulatory reform action plan. [125457]
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Douglas Alexander): We are on course to deliver the commitments set out in the regulatory reform action plan published last year. This is a three-year programme and, as of April this year, 31 per cent. of the measures in the plan had been completed. We will be publishing a formal progress report at the half-way stage in the autumn of this year.
Mr. Love : I thank the Minister for that reply. He will be aware of the concerns about the regulatory burden, especially among small businesses. He will also know that the Select Committee on Regulatory Reform is willing and able to take up the cudgels in this area on the Government's behalf. What action does he intend to take to ensure that the action plan is implemented by the end of this Parliament?
Mr. Alexander: I hope that I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks. This is a matter of concern to me, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that it is one of the Government's priorities. The National Small Business Council has recently published an important report on this area of work, to which I shall give due consideration. It is worth noting the comments from the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In two recent reports, the OECD identified the strength of the better-regulation agenda in Britain, compared with that of our international counterparts.
Bob Spink (Castle Point): Is the Minister aware that the British Chambers of Commerce, no less, has said that red tape is growing like topsy, damaging jobs and our economy and destroying our international competitiveness? It is probably even more damaging than Labour's massive tax hikes, which businesses have had to suffer.
Mr. Alexander: If the hon. Gentleman wants to trade quotes from business associations, we should look at
what Digby Jones of the Confederation of British Industry said in the Sunday Express on 12 January of this year. He said:
- "Britain is definitely the best place to do business, compared with the rest of Europe."
Civil Service Recruitment (Disabled People)
23. Mr. Huw Edwards (Monmouth): If he will make a statement on the recruitment of people with disabilities to the civil service. [125458]
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Douglas Alexander): The Government are committed to employing disabled people and, as of October 2002, disabled staff accounted for 3.6 per cent. of the civil service. That is an increase from 2.8 per cent. in 1995.
Mr. Edwards: Does my hon. Friend accept that 12.6 per cent. of the active UK population has a mobility problem and that those people are under-represented in the civil service? Will he give me an assurance that recruitment policies will be improved to widen access for people with disabilities to that major employer?
Mr. Alexander: My hon. Friend makes a number of important points. Of course, that is a matter on which we will continue to work. It might assist the House if I mention first the new recruitment guide that the Cabinet Office has published, which provides specific best practice instances of recruitment of disabled staff. Secondly, the Cabinet Office sponsors Ready, Willing, Able, an organisation that supports the recruitment of disabled staff. We are also introducing a summer placement scheme for disabled recruitment. In that regard, I take seriously the points that my hon. Friend has raised, but I hope that I have assured him that this is a matter that the Government are taking forward with some expedition.
Iraq
12.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement to update the House on the situation in Iraq before we rise for the summer recess.
When the regime of Saddam Hussein collapsed just over three months ago, we made two key undertakings to the Iraqi people: first, that we would rally international support for their country's reconstruction; and secondly, that we would remain in Iraq only as long as it took to establish an elected, representative Iraqi Government, able themselves to maintain their internal security.
First, on Iraq's reconstruction, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1483 on 22 May. That resolution gave the UN a vital role in all aspects of Iraq's development, including the political process. Under that resolution, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed as his special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, the highly respected United Nations high commissioner for human rights. Resolution 1483 freed Iraq from the UN sanctions regime, allowing oil revenues to be spent on humanitarian needs, economic reconstruction and other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq.
On Sunday, an important step was taken towards fulfilling the second undertaking—the establishment of a sovereign Iraqi Government. The convening of the Iraqi governing council is a significant development. The council is the principal body of the interim administration called for in resolution 1483. Mr. Vieira de Mello has described the formation of the council as a "defining moment" for Iraq,
- "moving it back where it rightfully belongs: at peace with itself and as a full participant in the community of nations."
The governing council will exercise significant powers. These should expand over time. I am placing in the Library a full list of members and the statement agreed between the governing council and the coalition provisional authority establishing the authorities of the council.
Let me summarise the main points for the benefit of the House. The council will be involved in all the decisions that the coalition provisional authority takes from now on. It will nominate new Ministers to lead Iraq's ministries, hold them to account and have the power of dismissal. Its members will be able to represent Iraq internationally. It will determine the national budget for next year.
The contrast with the Ba'athist regime could not be starker. Membership of the council itself emerged from an exhaustive process of consultation among representative groups, many of whose leaders I met in Baghdad two weeks ago. The council includes the
leaders of 14 Iraqi parties, with prominent figures from Islamist groups and the Communist party. It will govern by consent not terror. It is the first time in living memory that the Shi'as, who form a majority in Iraq, have had a majority in any national governing body there.One of the council's first jobs will be to determine how a new constitution for Iraq should be prepared. Once adopted, that constitution will pave the way for the election of an Iraqi Government who will assume all the powers and responsibilities currently held by the coalition provisional authority. Sergio Vieira de Mello will brief the UN Security Council next Tuesday on those and other political developments and on the role of the governing council; the council has already announced that it will be sending a delegation to the Security Council for that meeting.
Whatever position hon. Members may have taken on the need for military action, these developments will, I am sure, be welcomed by the whole House, but the progress that has been made is opposed by groups loyal to Saddam Hussein who resent the loss of their powers and wish to disrupt progress to political reform. The main problems are in the area to the north and west of Baghdad, the so-called Sunni triangle, from where much of the republican guard was recruited. Although those individuals do not pose a serious challenge to Iraq's democratic future, they do threaten coalition forces and those Iraqis who are helping to build their country. Nine British soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the end of large-scale combat operations in mid-April, bringing to 43 the total number of deaths of British service personnel since the beginning of military action. I know that I speak for the whole House in underlining our condolences to the families and friends of those killed, and in saluting both their courage and that of those who have been injured.
When in Basra two weeks ago, I was able to speak to the close colleagues of the Royal Military Police officers who were killed at Majar-al-Kabir and to the paratroopers involved in the parallel engagements. The commitment and professionalism of those I met, and of all British forces, is something of which this country must be, and is, immensely proud. Of course, we pay equal tribute to the United States service personnel who have been killed or injured in Iraq.
On the whole, the Shi'a south has been calm and overwhelmingly supportive of Saddam's demise. In the UK area of operations, joint patrols by British troops and Iraqi police have been under way since mid-April. Major cities in the north with mixed populations, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, have generally been calm. The coalition provisional authority estimates that 100 courtrooms and eight prison facilities are now operational. One of the CPA's top priorities has been to restore the rule of law in the capital, Baghdad. That is slowly taking place, although the situation is not yet satisfactory. Thirty-four Iraqi police stations in Baghdad are open 24 hours a day, and 9,000 police officers have returned to duty in the capital.
There have also been improvements in the provision and delivery of essential services. The Iraqi national budget for the period July to December this year, announced by the CPA on 7 July, included increases for health care. The authority has also announced that all 240 hospitals in Iraq are now operational and that
98 per cent. of schools are open. When I was in Basra two weeks ago, the commander of the British forces told me that 17,000 students in the universities in their sector were taking their final examinations in the normal way.Reconstruction would be moving ahead more quickly were it not for the attacks by remnants of the old regime on the electricity and oil pipeline infrastructure. As a result Baghdad is receiving only between 70 and 90 per cent. of pre-war water supply, but across the entire country, more Iraqis have access to electricity supplies than before the war. Delivery of food through Iraq's public distribution system is now reaching the entire country. Preliminary figures for June show that food rations were distributed to about 26 million Iraqis in a target population of 27 million. Food distribution is being extended to the Marsh Arabs, a people who I understand received no food rations at all under Saddam Hussein. As the security situation in Iraq stabilises, the World Food Programme is increasingly using the port of Umm Qasr for its deliveries, and the £150 million in funding for humanitarian projects already committed by our own Department for International Development is beginning to have an impact on the ground.
Reconstruction plainly requires a significant effort by the whole international community, however. A preliminary meeting of donors co-chaired by the CPA and the United Nations Development Programme was held in New York on 24 June; a full conference will be held in October. Countries are coming forward to join coalition forces. In addition to the 147,000 US and 11,000 UK service personnel in theatre, those forces include personnel from Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Norway, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Ukraine and Lithuania.
On 18 March, the House voted by a majority of 263 to approve military action, principally because of Iraq's palpable failure to comply unconditionally and immediately with the terms of United Nations Security Council resolution 1441, by which the Security Council itself had said that Iraq's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, its long-range missile systems and its non-compliance with a string of Security Council resolutions, dating back to 1991, posed a threat to international peace and security. The evidence on which that decision was based was overwhelmingly from open sources and was laid before the House in a number of Command Papers, which included UNMOVIC's 173-page report, "Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programmes". I am in no doubt that the House's decision on 18 March is as justified today as it was when we took it.
Of course, given the magnitude of the decisions that the House took, it is entirely right that Parliament should conduct its own inquiries into the decision to go to war. I know that the whole House is grateful to the Foreign Affairs Committee for its inquiry and to Members of both Houses on the Intelligence and Security Committee who are conducting a related inquiry. The Government will, of course, respond in detail in the normal way to their reports. The House will also wish to know that the Iraq survey group is now deployed and will report at appropriate times. However,
the following may assist the House on the issue of yellowcake from Niger, which was also raised yesterday, among other things, by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson).As I have already explained to the Foreign Affairs Committee, we had no knowledge that the documents given to the International Atomic Energy Agency were forged until February 2003, and in a letter last Friday to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I have placed in the Library, I set out the position relating to the report of Ambassador Joe Wilson. As I have made clear, we had, and have, other separate information available to us. Moreover, the 24 September dossier itself concluded that unless Iraq obtained fissile material—yellowcake is not fissile material—Iraq would need at least five years to be in a position to produce a nuclear weapon.
With the establishment of the governing council, the Iraqi people have embarked on the process of building their own future. More than 150 newspapers have been launched since the fall of Baghdad. Major cities and towns across Iraq now have municipal councils, where Iraqis are increasingly taking responsibility for local issues. Iraqis are speaking out and demonstrating with a vigour not seen for decades. At the launch of the governing council last Sunday, we saw many of the features of democracy. Yes, there was criticism, strong disagreement and compromise—all now possible in the new Iraq, all previously punishable by arrest or worse under Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, the scale of the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein's regime becomes more apparent by the day. Tens of thousands of bodies have so far been unearthed in mass graves. In its latest assessment, I am told that the Red Cross estimates that 300,000 Iraqis are "missing"—the victims, in the Red Cross's terms, of "internal violence". I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for her tireless work as our special envoy on human rights. The leader of the British forensic team in Iraq, Professor Margaret Cox, has commented that Saddam's regime
- "was propped up with the bones of the Iraqi people buried beneath its sands."
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