Parliament denied 'war-making' powers

Tuesday, 7 November 2006 12:00 AM

The government has rejected calls to let parliament decide when the UK goes to war, insisting the prime minister must maintain powers allowing him to make decisions without parliamentary support.

Currently, Tony Blair can use the Royal Prerogative to take the country to war. And the government today said he will keep these "war-making powers".

Rejecting demands from the Lords' constitution committee - who wanted an end to the government's "unfettered power" to deploy British troops into conflict - a government spokeswoman said the country's elected leaders must be able to respond to situations immediately.

The committee condemned the decision, saying the response to this summer's Waging War: Parliament's role and responsibility report was "tardy and unsatisfactory".

It showed the government's "complete failure" to consider establishing a convention outlining parliament's role in deploying forces outside the UK, committee chairman Lord Holme of Cheltenham argued.

After the vote on Iraq, this would be "the logical next step", the Liberal Democrat peer said, arguing the move was "accepted as such across the political spectrum - from Gordon Brown to David Cameron to Sir Menzies Campbell".

He added: "This temporising and woolly response has very little to do with the merits of the case we made."

Although the government would continue to review the recommendations, a spokeswoman said: "The government is not presently persuaded of the case for going beyond that to establishing a new convention determining the role of parliament in the deployment of the armed forces."

The decision must be based on the government's "own assessment of the position", the spokeswoman said, stressing: "That is one of the key responsibilities for which it has been elected."

In February, Mr Blair's told the liaison committee he could not "conceive of a situation in which a government. is going to go to war - except in circumstances where militarily for the security of the country it needs to act immediately - without a full parliamentary debate".

Earlier this year, the Conservatives called for MPs to have more power to make decisions.

Tags:
• armed forces
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• constitution
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• defence
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• domestic policy
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• foreign policy
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• government and administration
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• house of commons
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• iraq
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• middle east