Scott Report

The Scott Report (the Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions) was a judicial inquiry commissioned in 1992 after reports of arms sales to Iraq in the 1980s by British companies surfaced. The report was conducted by Sir Richard Scott, then a Lord Justice of Appeal. It was published in 1996. Much of the report was secret.

In the late 1980s, Matrix Churchill, a British (Coventry) aerospace quality machine tools manufacturer that had been bought by the Iraqi government, was exporting machines used in weapons manufacture to Iraq. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, the products later found in Iraq were among the highest quality of their kind in the world. They were 'dual use' machines that could be used to manufacture weapons parts. Such exports are subject to government control, and Matrix Churchill had the appropriate government permissions, following a 1988 relaxation of export controls. Crucially, however, this relaxation had not been announced to Parliament – indeed, when asked in Parliament whether controls had been relaxed, the then-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry replied incorrectly that they had not.

Matrix Churchill was contacted by HM Customs and Excise, under suspicion of exporting arms components to Iraq without permission. It had this permission but this was denied by the government, in line with the most recently announced policy on the matter. Matrix Churchill's directors were therefore prosecuted in 1991 by Customs and Excise for breaching export controls.

The trial did not go well for the government – public interest immunity certificates obtained by the government to suppress some critical evidence (supposedly on grounds of national security) were quickly overturned by the trial judge, forcing the documents to be handed over to the defence. The trial eventually collapsed when former minister Alan Clark admitted he had been 'economical with the actualité' in answer to parliamentary questions regarding what he knew about export licenses to Iraq.

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