THE former British prime ministers, Baroness Thatcher, threw the government a lifeline last night as it battled to stave off a highly damaging defeat over the arms to Iraq affair.
But a Tory rebel, Mr Richard Shepherd, delivered a scathing attack on ministers, stopping short of saying what he would do in the division lobbies.
The Scott report had shown how ministers repeatedly failed in their duty to keep MPs accurately informed, he said and demanded a "more vigorous" response to it. He declared "I must tell ministers I stand for the people of Aldridge Brownhills, and I will stand for the balance of the power of this chamber against the executive."
Earlier, as the President of the Board of Trade, Mr Ian Lang, announced moves to improve ministerial accountability and openness about arms sales, Lady Thatcher weighed in behind ministers' handling of the matters at the heart of Sir Richard Scott's report.
In her first public comments since the report was published, she told the House of Lords there had been no change in government guidelines on the export of defence related equipment to Iraq in the late 1980s when she was prime minister.
"If there was no change in the guidelines and there was not then the question of deliberately misleading the house does not arise," she said.
Defending the Treasury Chief Secretary, Mr William Waldegrave, who was then a Foreign Office minister, Lady Thatcher insisted "I am sure there was never any intent to mislead on the part of Mr Waldegrave or any other ministers and Sir Richard Scott himself concludes there was no duplicitous intent."
She said the "most contentious area" of Sir Richard's report was his conclusion that the guidelines were "surreptitiously changed" in 1988-89 and this was not reported to parliament.
"On this matter, I differ from Sir Richard."
Meanwhile, in a rowdy and packed House of Commons, Mr Lang again insisted the government stood "acquitted" of the central charges levelled against it in the affair but admitted "Mistakes were made. There are lessons to be learned."
Flanked by the Prime Minister,
Mr Major, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Michael Heseltine and Mr Waldegrave, Mr Lang said reforms would include
A review of ministerial openness in dealing with parliamentary inquiries about arms sales.
Greater supervision by the Attorney General's office of Customs and Excise prosecutions.
Improvements in the distribution of intelligence material between government departments.
A possible reappraisal of the use by ministers of Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificates.
The opposition foreign spokesman, Mr Robin Cook, made a strong attack, saying "This is not just a government which does not know how to accept blame. It is a government that knows no shame."
He appealed to Conservative MPs to vote against the government, urging "They should not look at tonight's vote as to whether or not it is a defeat for the government. They should look on it as a vote which will decide on the democracy in which we live."
He added "It was secrecy that made this scandal possible. The five volumes of the Scott report provide the firmest foundation yet of the case for a freedom of information Act.
Mr Lang accused Mr Cook of having "systematically misled the country over three years with the repeated charges that we secretly conspired to arm Saddam Hussein with lethal weapons and that we gagged the courts to suppress the evidence.
Amid uproar, Mr Lang claimed Labour governments in the 1960s and 1970s had sold lethal weapons including destroyers, missiles, helicopters and bombers to countries such as Iran and Argentina.
The Labour peers' leader, Lord Richard, declared in the Lords "Ministers lied to parliament and apparently no one is responsible. Defendants were placed in jeopardy and apparently no one is responsible. Someone is responsible and they should accept that responsibility and face up to it.
"There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind, having now actually read every word of the Scott report, that Mr Waldegrave misled parliament deliberately, designedly and intentionally not once but 38 times in ministerial letters and in answer to parliamentary questions. It is frankly breathtaking that he remains in office.
In the Commons Mr Shepherd said "This is an important exclamation mark in our constitutional affairs, for Sir Richard Scott makes the observation that time and time again, ministers failed in their constitutional duty to keep this house accurately informed."
On Mr Major's establishing of the Scott inquiry, he said "What we have, thanks to the Prime Minister, is an account of how we enhanced the defence capacity of Iraq.
"That I find deeply and profoundly disturbing.
Mr Shepherd cited numerous references to the Scott report which he said recorded instances where the government intended to mislead, or be less than candid. There were "pages and pages of it". He referred to the report's account of evidence from Mr David Gore Booth, a former foreign office official who became the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and the civil service head, Sir Robin Butler.
"There we see clever men lay out an argument. The substance is to argue that half a picture may be possibly an indication of what the whole picture is," said Mr Shepherd.
"This house has to make it quite clear both to Sir Robin Butler and to Mr Gore Booth ... to those servants of the state, that neither this house nor this country will be governed on the basis of half the picture."
What stood between Britain and an elective dictatorship was "the candidness, the openness, the frankness of those that govern us, and when they mislead, how" do we know the premises which we argue our case area truthful?"
He warned that the "cynical response" of some towards the report could prompt cynicism among the public and called for a freedom of information Act, and for select committees to have the power to insist on having documents and people before them.