Geoff Hoon: 'We failed to predict the sheer level of violence in post-war Iraq'

The Monday Interview: Leader of the Commons

Mr Hoon had been the longest-serving minister in the same job apart from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when he became Commons Leader after the general election in May. In five and a half years at the Ministry of Defence, he was tipped for the sack more often than any other minister. He was also a " lightning conductor" for Mr Blair over Iraq. Some Labour MPs attribute his cabinet survival in May to him being "the man who knew too much" about the war. Blair aides give a more prosaic reason: "Tony is loyal to the people who are loyal to him." Mr Hoon is also seen in Downing Street as a good team player and safe pair of hands who can play with a straight bat. He had a lot of practice on Iraq.

Interviewed as the Commons began its 11-week summer break, Mr Hoon is happy to look back at his old job as well as forward to his new one. There is a common theme: after helping to introduce democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, he is now keen to improve democracy at home by raising the depressingly low turnout at general elections.

When British forces invaded Iraq, did he really expect the terrible events on the ground today to be happening more than two years later? "I obviously hoped that they wouldn't be. I don't think anybody else feels any differently." Mr Hoon disputes the now widely held view that there was not enough planning for the aftermath of the war.

"That's a strange retrospective justification based on what is happening now. The truth is that there was more planning for the aftermath in Iraq than any other operation I can think of," he says. So what went wrong? "What we didn't do, I accept, was properly anticipate the level of violence people were prepared to use to oppose the creation of a democratic society.

"I don't think we appreciated the level of fanaticism and sheer anarchic violence that people were prepared to employ. We were planning on making sure the Iraqi people had enough food, access to oil that would generate wealth to stimulate the economy, power stations, power lines, making sure water could be drunk. All sorts of practical things that these people targeted.

"With the benefit of hindsight, I don't think we quite appreciated that the insurgents were prepared to stop people having clean drinking water, were prepared to shut down the power supplies and damage the future of Iraq's economy.

"Maybe we should have. But it is pretty hard to deal with people who are prepared to send suicide bombers into the heart of cities - whether that is in the heart of Baghdad or the heart of London."

Did Mr Hoon accept the verdict of the respected Chatham House think-tank that the Iraq war had made Britain more of a terrorist target? "I think we have always been a target. I don't think that it has changed that. These people have an agenda to destroy democracy, whether that is in Iraq, US or the UK. That is why we have been warning since long before operations began in Iraq that people had to be vigilant because we were a target. In the aftermath of 9/11, there were serious concerns about the threat to the UK. It hasn't suddenly arisen."

Mr Hoon is at the centre of the debate about whether the Commons should be recalled during its long summer break to discuss the terrorist attacks in Britain. "It has happened on five occasions in recent years. No one is going to prevent that happening, least of all me," he says.

Although the Commons is not due to sit until 10 October, it could be recalled in September -either to be briefed on terrorist attacks or to rush through legislation deemed urgent by the security services. "At the moment, that is not the plan," he says. "If there is a necessity, Parliament will come back."

How can he justify what has been called an 80-day holiday by some newspapers? Mr Hoon says it is anything but that because, like many MPs, he will be active in his constituency. He feels that MPs can't win: if they spent all their time at Westminster, they would be accused of being " absentee MPs" only interested in their constituents at election times.

That brings us to Mr Hoon's main preoccupation since becoming Commons Leader: how to combat voter alienation from the political process, about which he is deeply worried. Not normally a man to court controversy, he did just that by making the case for voting at general elections to become compulsory, as it is in Australia and Belgium. Under his plan, people could still vote for "none of the above" by spoiling their ballot paper. They could face a small fine for not taking part; but they could get a small discount on their council tax bill for joining the electoral register and voting. Registration is a big problem, he believes, with an estimated 2.7 million people not on the list and local authorities' efforts patchy.

Although compulsory voting is not government policy, he will press its case during a review this autumn but concedes it would need all-party support. "In a world where we require people in the back seat of a car to wear a seat-belt, asking people to vote every four or five years for their government is not such a difficult thing to expect," he says.

Refreshingly, Mr Hoon does not blame voters, saying they are interested in what is going on around them, and admits it is partly the politicians' fault. "What we have failed to show is that when their local school gets better it has not happened by chance. We have not explained that it is the result of more money going into education."

Mr Hoon's enthusiasm for reform has its limits. Would not turnout increase if every vote counted as it would under proportional representation? And surely the 40,000 people who backed The Independent's Campaign for Democracy cannot all be wrong? "I read the stuff and it's quite interesting. I am not discounting the fact that there is a strong intellectual argument for saying that in a democracy the results of the election should reflect the wishes of the electorate. How that is determined is the issue," he says. He suspects the public wants to maintain the link between MPs and their constituencies and ensure a clear election result, both of which are achieved by the existing first-past-the-post system.

"I accept that there is a further argument that says there ought to be a greater connection between the votes cast and the result. I remain open-minded about that. I am not yet persuaded," he says.

He has one crumb of comfort for PR campaigners, promising that there will be a public debate. Mr Hoon advocates a horses- for-courses approach on electoral systems. "I don't believe necessarily that you choose one system for all purposes. I think you choose the system that is consistent with the purposes of the institution that is being elected. Therefore I think you can perfectly properly have different kinds of electoral system," he says.

Nothing he has said would rule out the Alternative Vote (AV), under which people mark candidates in order of preference and the bottom one drops out, with their second-preference votes redistributed until one candidate gets more than 50 per cent of those cast. This is seen in Labour circles as the most likely compromise if the party needs to offer the Liberal Democrats electoral reform in a hung parliament.

Mr Hoon concedes that AV would keep the constituency link and make second preferences count but doubts it would always produce a clear result. He also fears it might satisfy neither fans of PR nor of first-past-the-post.

A more immediate issue for the Government is House of Lords reform, which Labour has been wrestling with since 1911. Mr Hoon cannot say when the free Commons vote on the composition of the second chamber, promised in Labour's manifesto, will take place. First, he insists, the powers of the Lords - and its relationship with the Commons - must be resolved.

He admits there are "very powerful voices in the Labour Party who strongly support elections to the second chamber". But his approach is cautious: "We must try to fix some reference points that would allow us to proceed with a sensible debate about composition. Otherwise you are constantly trying to hit a moving target."

Even Lords reform seems distant in the new climate of terrorist attacks in London. Security in Parliament is on everyone's mind. Last Tuesday, Mr Hoon expressed his disappointment when only 30 MPs took part in a mock evacuation of the Commons. He was also disappointed that the BBC reported he was not wearing his security pass. "I carry my pass all the time. I didn't have to wear it,'' he says, before turning on the TV in his Commons room to find the latest news on what is happening on London's streets.

The CV

* BORN: 6 December 1953, Derby

* EDUCATED: Nottingham High School; Jesus College, Cambridge.

* CAREER: Called to Bar, Gray's Inn, 1978. Law lecturer, Leeds University, 1976-1982.

Politics: MEP for Derbyshire and Ashfield 1984-1994;

MP for Ashfield since 1992.

Opposition whip 1994-95, then trade and industry spokesman.

Minister, Lord Chancellor's Department, 1997-99.

Minister, Foreign Office 1999.

Defence Secretary, 1999-2004.

Leader of the Commons since May 2005.

* FAMILY: Married with son and two daughters.