The Arms Trade and the Constitution: Beyond the Scott Report

Abstract

The Scott Report' covered an extensive range of matters, notably claims by ministers of Public Interest Immunity as the reason for withholding evidence from the defence in criminal cases, the structure and use of legal powers to control the export of military and dual-use equipment, the use of foreign intelligence by government departments, and ministerial accountability to Parliament. In addition, it gives us a picture, unrivalled in detail, of how policymaking and administration are carried out within the government of this country. But what in the long run may come to be seen as the most important contribution of the Report, over and above any of its particular recommendations,2 is that it has altered the terms of public debate. It has provided a baseline for popular judgement, a platform for critique, and by implication at least, an outline of standards for how the political and administrative elite which governs the nation ought to behave. In this sense the Scott Report and the Nolan Report,3 however different their specific subject matter and the circumstances which gave rise to them, are very much in tandem. It is the spirit, perhaps even more than the letter of the Report, which is its enduring contribution.