The House owes my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) a debt not only for raising this issue, but for the way in which he has pursued the Belgrano affair by — as the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) implied — directing himself not at the service men involved but at the operation that controlled the naval movements at the time.

My hon. Friend has given us the sort of story that would tax the ingenuity of a novelist. However, it is precisely at such times that we should remember that truth can be stranger than fiction. I hope that the Minister will not attempt to dismiss it as some form of creative literature or to put it down to a colourful imagination. My hon. Friend has put very real questions to the Minister and they deserve answers.

Like my hon. Friend, I realise that those questions cannot be answered easily or quickly. No one, perhaps, expects the Minister to give full and detailed answers now. But we, and others outside the House, expect him to put before the country in due course a satisfactory explanation of events, or to set up an inquiry to ensure that events are looked into in more depth. We may then be reassured that the implications developed by the hon. Member for Yeovil have no foundation. Obviously, we should prefer a more conventional explanation, but we cannot assume that there is one until those questions have been answered.

It is important to remember that my hon. Friend has pursued this matter and the related matter of the Belgrano in a way that has not only respected the integrity of those involved in the military operation, but revealed the extraordinary accuracy of his research. He has, literally on a one-man operation, been able to demonstrate that the Government's arguments have not held together over a period of time. They have had to change their story from time to time, and it must be to my hon. Friend's credit that his research has brought that to light.

Not only is my hon. Friend's research accurate, but so are the sources of his information. I know those to be extremely good sources of information. The Minister and many others must be deeply disturbed by the quality of the information that is always available to my hon. Friend. He uses that information to deploy his case well.

I hope that if the Minister cannot give us answers today, he will be able to reassure the House that he will ensure that those answers are provided at some stage and in some context.

There is the wider issue of the control of the security forces. It has long been the view of the Labour party, and certainly of myself, that the security forces should be under much greater political control, answerable to the House in a more direct and effective manner than they have been in the past. Anyone who has been connected with Northern Ireland will know the importance of that. The security forces have grown in number and sophistication in recent years, and to rely on the control of either the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister, answerable to the House, must be grossly inadequate in any democracy.

A suggestion has been put forward for a Committee of Privy Councillors. I always want to question whether a committee need necessarily be composed of Privy Councillors. There are other ways of dealing with the matter. We shall never give hon. Members sufficient weight and authority unless we are prepared to recognise that each can act responsibly and properly on such a Committee.

I am prepared to move on the nature and type of democratic control of the security forces. We cannot go on much longer with the present system of control. It brings the country into disrepute and leaves unanswered questions such as those asked by my hon. Friend. It must be fundamentally dangerous for any democracy to be left with the feeling that adequate answers are not forthcoming. If the public feel that there are cover-ups, that people are trying to avoid difficult questions and that the structure of the democracy is not good enough to bring matters out, the credibility of that democracy will be undermined. Sooner or later that must change. My hon. Friend, by the way in which he has brought the matter out, has done a service not only to the House but to the nation as well.