HM TREASURY
26/96 15 February 1996
SCOTT CLEARS WALDEGRAVE OF INTENT TO MISLEAD
William Waldegrave said today:
"Sir Richard Scott clears me of lying to Parliament or
intending to mislead anyone in letters I signed.
He also proves beyond doubt that I did not connive in
allowing machine tools for arms manufacture to go to
Iraq: he says I would have stopped them going if certain
intelligence reports had reached me.
I am grateful to Sir Richard for listening carefully to
what I said to him, above all for accepting my good
faith."
SCOTT AND WALDEGRAVE: KEY EXTRACTS FROM SCOTT REPORT
Scott clears Waldegrave of lying to Parliament or in letters
"I accept that he [Waldegrave] did not intend his letters to
be misleading and did not so regard them." (D 4.12)
"I accept also that ... the junior Ministers believed they
were avoiding a formal change to the 1985 Guidelines."
(D 3.125)
"I accept that Mr Waldegrave and the other adherents of the
"interpretation" thesis did not, in putting forward the
thesis, have any duplicitous intention." (D 3.124)
"I did not receive the impression of any insincerity on his
part in giving me the evidence he did." (D 4.6)
So Scott accepts that Waldegrave did not lie to Parliament and did
not intend to mislead Parliament or others.
What motivated Ministers?
"The overriding and determinative reason" for answering the
PQs and letters in the terms chosen was to protect "British
trading interests." (D 4.42)
Scott confirms Waldegrave acting in accordance with Government
policy
The decisions of the three junior Ministers were "consistent
with the views that had been put forward by Lord Howe in his
paper to the Prime Minister". (D 3.65)
"Waldegrave was sufficiently concerned [about the Matrix
Churchill licence applications] to send the papers to the
Secretary of State who agreed with him". (D 6.95)
"The [Hawk] paper did therefore place all those to whom it was
circulated, including the Prime Minister, on notice that a
more liberal and less restrictive approach to defence sales to
Iraq was being adopted" (D 3.100)
Scott says no lethal equipment (guns, shells, missiles etc)
exported to Iraq
"Policy on the export of lethal equipment remained unaltered"
(D 8.1). Export licences for lethal equipment were
"invariably rejected".
Moreover, Scott recognises that little extra non-lethal
equipment was exported as a result of the more flexible
interpretation. The practical impact of the change was
therefore, as intended, small (D 3.104)
Scott says Waldegrave did not connive at the export of Matrix
Churchill equipment knowing it to be for arms manufacture
Waldegrave "would not have given way [and allowed the Matrix
Churchill licence applications to go through] had he known the
true state of intelligence on the intended end-use of the
machine tools". The fact that he did not have this
intelligence "... was not, in my opinion, the fault of the
Ministers". (D 6.169)
Scott makes it clear that neither Waldegrave nor anyone else
outside the intelligence agencies knew that people inside Matrix
Churchill were giving information to the intelligence services.
(D2.312). Mr Waldegrave had nothing to do with the prosecution of
Matrix Churchill, nor did he sign a PII certificate.
Scott says earlier draft criticisms irrelevant
"The final Report - and the final report alone - contains my
concluded views". (B 3.11)
So the leaked draft criticisms are rejected.
A N N E X A
Does Scott say Waldegrave misled Parliament?
No. He says that William Waldegrave and others did not believe
there had been a change of the Guidelines (they still do not).
D 3.113 sets out the facts.
D 3.122: "This argument (that the relaxation of the Guidelines
agreed upon by the junior Ministers did not constitute a
change in the guidelines) is not one that was produced by
its proponents for the purposes of meeting questions put
by the Inquiry. It was a viewpoint widely expressed at
the time".
Scott does not accept the argument, but ....
D 3.124 "I accept that Mr Waldegrave and the other adherents of
the "interpretation" thesis did not, in putting forward
the thesis, have any duplicitous intention and, at the
time, regarded the relaxed interpretation, or
implementation, of guideline (iii) as being a justifiable
use of the flexibility believed to be inherent in the
Guidelines".
Scott says "I accept also that in deciding that the agreed
approaches to defence exports to Iraq and Iran respectively could
be described as being interpretations of the 1985 Guidelines, the
junior Ministers believed they were avoiding a formal change of the
1985 Guidelines." (D 3.125)
Does Scott say William Waldegrave intended to mislead in letters?
No. (D 4.6) Scott says "Mr Waldegrave knew, first hand, the facts
that in my opinion rendered the "no change in policy" statement
untrue." But he then goes on "I accept that when he signed these
letters he did not regard the agreement he had reached with his
fellow Ministers as having constituted a change in policy towards
Iraq ..." (D 4.6). He thinks Mr Waldegrave's belief that the
policy had not changed was wrong and says:
"Taken overall the terms of Mr Waldegrave's letter to Mr
Sackville and his other letters in like terms were in my
opinion apt to mislead the readers as to the nature of the
policy on export sales to Iraq that were currently being
pursued by the Government. Mr Waldegrave was in a position to
know that that was so"
but then goes on immediately to say, unequivocally,
"although I accept that he did not intend his letters to be
misleading and did not so regard them" (D 4.12)
