LEADING ARTICLE : Five steps to save us from the contempt of our rulers

A Government which systematically misleads the public it is meant to serve. Ministers who consistently fail to uphold the principle of accountability to Parliament. A political elite which holds voters in such arrogant contempt that deliberate disinformation is part of its stock in trade. Politicians grown so complacent by their years in power that they regard the electorate as a hostile force that can be easily duped. That is the picture of government power - unchecked, unaccountable and often abused - that emerges from Sir Richard Scott's damning report into the arms-to-Iraq affair.

The central charge in the report is that this Government has practised deceit and duplicity on a grand scale. In 1988, the Government secretly approved the supply of defence equipment to Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, only months after he had gassed hundreds of Kurds. The shift in policy was kept secret from Parliament and the people. We were not trusted to know about it. The Government feared the outrage it might provoke. It was all very technical. Yet thereafter the same government and the same ministers sought to rally us and ordered our troops to risk their lives fighting the very dictator that ministers had secretly been aiding.

This is not a technicality. This goes to the heart of government: a central principle of British democracy has been violated - that ministers must tell Parliament the truth. In retrospect, the handling of the trial of Matrix Churchill employees who were charged with illegally supplying defence equipment to Iraq was just the tip of an iceberg of evasion and misinformation, which sprang from the culture of secrecy in which this Government operates. Their trial broke down when an ex-minister admitted, after changing his testimony, that the Government had secretly approved of the sales to Saddam.

Ministers very nearly allowed innocent men to be sent to prison by signing sweeping public interest immunity certificates (PIICs) which banned a vast range of papers and so withheld evidence that was helpful to the defence. Sir Richard states in his report that such use of PIICs was unprecedented in a criminal case and completely inappropriate. He has recommended that these certificates should never again be used in a criminal prosecution because there can never be a public interest defence for letting an innocent person go to jail.

What then of the two cabinet ministers at the heart of the affair: William Waldegrave, now Chief Secretary to the Treasury who helped revise the guidelines on arms sales, and Sir Nicholas Lyell, the Attorney General, who advised ministers to sign the PIICs. Sir Richard accepts that both acted in good faith. He finds there was no conspiracy among ministers over the Matrix Churchill trial. Yet he rightly finds serious fault with their judgement.

Mr Waldegrave failed, in numerous letters to MPs, to tell them of the change in government policy. Sir Richard is generous in accepting that Mr Waldegrave did not himself believe that the redrafting amounted to a relaxation of the rules. But the judge clearly finds this view eccentric and bizarre. Mr Waldegrave is acquitted of duplicity, but convicted of extraordinary blindness to reality and, worse, the requirements of democratic accountability. There should be no place in government for a minister who is capable of such self-delusion. Mr Waldegrave should resign.

Sir Nicholas administered his office poorly. He failed to supervise the Matrix Churchill trial properly and was remiss in failing to make sure that Michael Heseltine's reservations about the PIICs were made known to the prosecution. It is difficult to have confidence in his continuing role as chief legal adviser to the Government. He, too, must be replaced.

Their resignations will not be enough, however. The entire system needs to be reformed. That is the message the British public will take away from this invaluable insight into the workings of the people who govern us.

Reform is vital in these key areas:

A statutory code of practice should be created for civil servants so they understand their legal duty to blow the whistle when asked to tell lies for ministers. There should be an independent ombudsman to whom they can report concerns about deception. The code would put a check on ministers and provide a strong, unifying ethic for a fragmenting civil service.

A clear, well-defined duty, laid out in law, should require ministers to announce to Parliament all important shifts in government policy. Changes to rules governing arms sales must be subject to parliamentary approval.

The use of PIICs should be severely curtailed: their use should be sanctioned by non-governmental officials instead of being available as a weapon with which ministers protect themselves.

The post of Attorney General should cease to be a political appointment. As in several other Commonwealth countries, the chief legal adviser to the Government should not sit in the Cabinet and should not be a politician. This would resolve the current conflict of interest that afflicts Attorney Generals - loyalty to the Government, versus strict adherence to the law.

A Freedom of Information Bill should be passed, presuming a citizen's right to information unless a good reason could be given for secrecy. Areas of policy, involving intelligence, defence and commercially sensitive material, would be excluded although secrecy would have to be justified to a non-governmental body, perhaps overseen by Privy Councillors.

Sir Richard has uncovered with measured clarity and commendable honesty a culture of secrecy throughout British government. Yesterday, in accepting reform of the PIIC system, the Government began the process of making itself more open. But the Scott inquiry has found that the culture is so deep-rooted that it is suffocating our democracy, threatening our system of justice. Sir Richard has done us a great service by alerting us to the state of our government. We must now act on his findings.