Sri Harmandir Sahib

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I go back to my earlier answers. I think it is fair to put it this way. If any of us, in any part of the House, thought that Britain had contributed to serious or unnecessary loss of life elsewhere in the world, it would be right to acknowledge a mistake and to say that the country apologises for that, but when the country clearly does not have responsibility for it, that is a different context. We have to go on the facts, and I think the facts are clear. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is really asking us to judge to a finer degree the decisions of Ministers at the time, which I feel, 30 years later and in a different Government, is very hard to do and could be unfair. I therefore stick to what I said earlier on this.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement, which I am confident will be very reassuring to the long-established and highly respected Sikh community in Kettering. None of us should ever forget that 83,000 Sikhs gave their lives in both world wars for His Majesty’s armed forces.

Does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is important not to put two and two together and make five? Will he confirm the rank of the military adviser? Does he also agree that the Iranian hostage siege operation and the raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar were completely different exercises? The Iranian hostage siege operation was a precise, surgical military engagement involving a small number of armed soldiers and a small number of hostages, and was remarkably successful. The raid on the Golden Temple involved artillery, main battle tanks, helicopter gunships and the execution of prisoners. It is completely inconceivable that Her Majesty’s Government would send any military adviser to another Government to recommend an assault of that kind.

[Mr Hague]

There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says. It has been the culture of the British armed forces for a long time to avoid, wherever possible, civilian loss of life and to minimise casualties in any operations, or anything similar to them, such as those to which he referred. There is therefore a very big distinction between those two operations; he is absolutely right about that. I will not give any information that identifies the officer concerned. My hon. Friend is quite right to refer to the huge contribution of Sikhs—indeed, of Indians, Sikh and non-Sikh—in the world wars. We owe a great deal to them, and we must remember that on many occasions over the coming years, on the centenaries of the main events of the first world war.