Öpik, Heath, Campbell and Mulholland on the Iraq inquiry

10.29.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 27th Jun 2009

• [Jun 24] Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat): ' . . DOES the right hon. Gentleman agree that one reason why the public and right hon. and hon. Members are so sceptical about the chances of openness and transparency is the very attitude that he has outlined, whereby the Government have to be dragged kicking and screaming, unwilling to achieve such transparency from the outset?

William Hague (Richmond (Yorks), Conservative); The hon. Gentleman is quite right, because such a beginning to the processes of the inquiry damages its credibility in the eyes of the public and makes it all the more important that that damage be now put right.

• . . Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): I should start by offering the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) for not being present. I think that he has written to both the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and the Foreign Secretary to explain why, for family reasons, he has not been able to open the debate for the Liberal Democrats.

I welcome the debate; it is both timely and valuable. I also accept right from the start that it is fair criticism of me and my colleagues to say that we approach this issue with a particular mindset. We opposed the war in Iraq and none of us have changed our minds on that. I and my party have never faltered in expressing our enormous respect for the courage and professionalism of the armed forces who are deployed in Iraq, and it is precisely because we are concerned about that deployment and the equipping of those armed forces that we think this inquiry is so important. I and my party have repeatedly and regularly argued for an open, independent and thorough inquiry. What we want is not a closed, Franks-style inquiry, nor an inquiry designed to protect the former Prime Minister-or, indeed, anybody else-but one that is capable of arriving at the facts and displaying them openly. Every time we have argued for that-which has been over many years now-we have been met with a degree of prevarication from the Government; there has always been one reason after another why the time was not right to have this inquiry. Possibly the most disingenuous was that, in the very latter stages of British troop involvement in Iraq, it would somehow cause a massive diversion of military attention if we were to hold an inquiry in this country into the causes and conduct of the conflict in Iraq. It was argued that that would distract the military authorities from their role in Iraq. However, at the same time, we were massively increasing our involvement in Afghanistan. That, apparently, was not any sort of distraction at all.

Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con): Is the hon. Gentleman not struck by the fact that in the United States there have been a number of inquiries into the war, how it came about and the processes behind it, and that some of them have been conducted in public while excluding the necessarily secret areas? Is that not in stark contrast to the reluctance of the British Government, who seek privacy in trying to resolve such fundamental issues?

• Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is right. In both America and other European countries, there have not apparently been the obstacles that the British Government believe were in place to an open and independent. Also, historically, a number of examples of inquiries were held while hostilities were still taking place and they were faced with no apparent obstacle to their progress.

We finally reached the end of this stonewalling period, however, and the Prime Minister came to the House on 16 June to announce the terms of the inquiry. I think it is fair to say that Members in all parts of the House were less than impressed with what they heard from him, because he seemed at pains to stress-almost over any other consideration-how little of the inquiry would be held in public.

Clare Short: None.

• Mr. Heath: Yes, if it had been possible to hold none of it in public, I think that would have been exactly the position the Prime Minister would have adopted. That is why I found it a bit rich to hear the Foreign Secretary's contribution today. He suggested that the Prime Minister, after having told the House that the inquiry would be held in private, immediately on returning to his office wrote to Sir John Chilcot to say, "Well, of course I want you to make this as open as possible, and not the other way round." Had we had proper consultation on the way in which this inquiry would be conducted in advance of the Prime Minister's statement, that would have made him look a little less foolish, and it would also have been for the good of the House. He has clearly had his mind changed for him-that is more accurate than "changed his mind", I think. Had we had the early consultation that I think most people in his position would have undertaken, we would not have been in that position, but it is clear that the consultation was vestigial and inadequate.

What we had is what we always have from this Prime Minister: he develops an idea, he writes it down on a sheet of paper in big black felt-tip, and he then announces it and demands consensus support from all Members on both sides of the House-and, in this instance, an independent chairman of a public inquiry. When he does not get that support and he has to backtrack on the position he has taken, he does not do so openly; he does not make an announcement-

John Barrett (Edinburgh, West) (LD): He does not do so here.

• Mr. Heath: Yes, as my hon. Friend says, he does not do that here. He just allows it to be known that the Government have changed their position. Well that is not good enough and, in this instance, it puts Sir John Chilcot in the almost impossible situation of having to undertake an exercise in post facto consultation and then to derive different terms of reference for the inquiry from those that were set out by the Prime Minister.

One of the difficulties that the Prime Minister has had is what he said, categorically, in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg):

"We also have to take into account what serving officers will want to say to the inquiry. I think that…all those things involve a degree of confidentiality that would not suit a public inquiry".-[Official Report, 15 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 29.]

That bold assertion lasted barely 24 hours before senior members of the military said what nonsense it was. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks quoted Air Marshal Sir John Walker, the former head of defence intelligence, because his comment was powerful and chilling in its clarity. He said:

"There is one reason that the inquiry is being heard in private and that is to protect past and present members of this Government. There are 179 reasons why the military want the truth to be out."

Those are 179 good reasons, and one might add that there are several hundred thousand other good reasons in the state of Iraq.

Mr. Baron: I suggest that this episode not only reveals the mindset of the Prime Minister, but illustrates yet again the hallmark of this Government, which has been secrecy about the lead-up to the war. Even when I asked the Foreign Secretary to ensure that the vast majority of the inquiry would be held in public, I did not get a definite answer that it would be. It was an answer in which he tried to hedge his bets when it came to the exact extent to which the inquiry would be held in public. That hallmark secrecy is what the public find so distressing about this Government's approach.

• Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is right. When in doubt, a blanket will be drawn over proceedings. We heard the quote from the briefing note, cited by the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice). Indeed, the Government amendment is not far removed from that briefing note. The difference is that last week the Prime Minister wanted us to believe that the inquiry would be in private. Now it suits the Government to have us believe that the inquiry will be mostly in public, but I have my doubts-and I have legitimate reasons to have doubts.

John Barrett: Does my hon. Friend agree that another group of people would like to see the inquiry held in public? When the 100th soldier died in Iraq, his parents, who are constituents of mine, contacted me because they were concerned about what had happened. They too deserve a full, open and public inquiry.

• Mr. Heath: Of course they do, and I am glad that my hon. Friend makes that point. Sadly, there are grieving families up and down this country who deserve to know the circumstances in which this conflict was undertaken and in which their loved ones died. Many more service personnel were wounded, and they have not yet been mentioned.

I want to know-and it would be nice to hear from the Foreign Secretary-the precise criteria for closed sessions of the inquiry. What is the definition of the "public events", mentioned by the hon. Member for Pendle, and the private sessions? Clearly, certain classified information will need private sessions, but many of us suspect that they will be the norm for much wider categories of information. What criteria will be used to determine whether a session should be in public or private? Will those criteria be published and how will they be assessed? We need to know the answers.

Mr. Michael Mates (East Hampshire) (Con): I hope, but I obviously cannot predict, that the inquiry will work in the same way as Committees of the House. I had the honour of chairing the Defence Committee when we were holding some very sensitive inquiries into the Trident programme. It was more or less up to the witness to say, "That is a question I cannot answer in public, but I will answer in private." We would go into private session when we had finished with the public part. So the public will get an idea of the sort of questions that witnesses are not prepared to answer in public, provided they are led down that path. That should be reassuring to some degree.

• Mr. Heath: I am not sure that I am entirely reassured by that. Yes, of course, it is reasonable for a witness to suggest that material that they may wish to share is confidential, but a decision then has to be taken-as it would be in a court, in certain circumstances-on whether that view is justified. I hope that the committee will be sufficiently robust to take the view that that which does not have to be heard in private will not be heard in private.

The inquiry will be essentially an inquisitorial process. It will not be the same as a court of law, which is confrontational. It needs to be able to scrutinise and sift material carefully, and it must also follow lines of inquiry. I share the view of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks that we need to ensure that the inquiry has access to those who are expert in the particular areas that need to be explored. It may be that the panel of assessors will cover all those areas, but Sir John Chilcot will have to be exceptionally careful to ensure that it does. But I would go further. Those inquiries that are most effective have the benefit of a counsel to the inquiry-someone who is expert in cross-examination and with experience of it in courts of law or elsewhere, and who can follow a line of inquiry in a way that no lay member of a committee, however experienced and competent, can do. I strongly argue that the inquiry should have the benefit of a counsel to the inquiry to provide that expert support, in terms of identifying the necessary written evidence and guiding lines of inquiry. I hope that Sir John Chilcot will accept that suggestion.

The power to summons is not included in the terms of reference for the inquiry. The Prime Minister has provided an exhortation to people to be prepared to give evidence to the inquiry. I hope that that takes the form of an order to members of the Government in the wider sense-including civil servants and former Ministers-to give evidence to the inquiry. I hope-and I trust that Conservative Members agree-that if there is any request for evidence from our parties, we would be prepared to provide it in person and in supporting material. There were occasions, especially in the lead-up to the war, on which contacts were made by several parties with counterparts in the US and elsewhere that are relevant to the conduct of the war and the expectation that this House would support it.

It has been made clear that Government papers will be provided, and the Foreign Secretary was explicit about Cabinet papers today. Can he be explicit about whether that will include legal advice to Cabinet, because that has so far been officially withheld? Will it be made available-[Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary says from a sedentary position that it will be provided, so we have broken through that final barrier, that we have been arguing now for so long-that the legal advice on which the war was waged will be available to this inquiry and will be made public. I am very pleased to have had that answer. I hope that it will not be redacted to a plain piece of black paper-we shall see.

Clare Short: Just for clarity, the legal advice appeared at the last minute in an answer to a parliamentary question in the House of Lords. The other legal advice, which was never circulated to Cabinet, came out when it was leaked during the election campaign. There was no other legal advice.

• Mr. Heath: We had leaked advice, but it is a fundamental shift of policy by the Government formally to allow sight of the legal advice to the Cabinet. I am delighted that the Foreign Secretary has made that point and we shall see whether there is any other legal advice that was forthcoming in the context of the lead-up to the war. It is relevant.

May I move to the issue of evidence under oath? I agree entirely with those who say that the best way of dealing with that is for this House to give authority to the inquiry to take evidence under oath. This is not an inquiry under the terms of the Inquiries Act 2005. It is not a court of law. However, it is nevertheless quite open to the House explicitly to give that power. I believe that the inquiry, in any case, has the right under law to receive evidence under oath. I have been looking carefully-this might surprise some hon. Members-at the Evidence Act 1851, and section 16 is still extant in this area. It states:

"Every court, judge, justice, officer, commissioner, arbitrator, or other person, now or hereafter having by law or by consent of parties authority to hear, receive, and examine evidence, is hereby empowered to administer an oath to all such witnesses as are legally called before them respectively."

That confers a power not just on court officials but on any person and if both parties are agreed, they can give evidence under oath. That is important because once they have sworn an oath, they are subject to the laws of perjury. That is the key point-[Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox) disagrees with me on this point, but I have advice from another learned gentleman that that is precisely what would happen. The hon. and learned Gentleman must explain to me why it would not.

Mr. Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con): In order for someone to be found guilty of perjury-or to be charged with perjury-it has to be demonstrated that the events were proceedings within the meaning of the common law. The difficulty about an informal inquiry that is not set up under the Inquiries Act is that it is quite likely that a court would hold that its proceedings were not proceedings of that character. Clarification is needed, at the very least.

• Mr. Heath: Clarification is certainly needed, and I am not equipped to argue points of law with the hon. and learned Gentleman, save to say that any affidavit sworn before an officer of the court is subject to the law of perjury and that certainly is not within the course of proceedings.

Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes) (Con): There is one way of getting out of this confusion, and that is for this House to pass a one clause Bill enabling the committee to administer the oath within the proceedings.

• Mr. Heath: I think that that is the case, but I am not even sure that it needs an Act of Parliament. I think that a mere resolution of this House could confer that right. I do not understand why the Secretary of State or any other member of the Government should resist such a move, because it seems so self-evidently necessary. Although I welcome the fact that Sir John Chilcot has said that he wants to specify to witnesses the need to be truthful, I do not think that that suffices in the context of an inquiry of this nature.

Sir Menzies Campbell: I am not sure that I am going to be entirely helpful to my hon. Friend, for which I hope that he will forgive me. The material part of the quotation that he read was the words "by consent". In those circumstances, if a witness came before something that might not be proceedings in the technical sense and he or she declined to give consent, clearly the provisions of the statute to which he referred would not apply. As has just been pointed out, the straightforward way to do this is either with a piece of legislation or a resolution of the House empowering Sir John Chilcot's inquiry to put witnesses on oath and, more to the point, compelling them to attend.

• Mr. Heath: I entirely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. That is the weakness of the position-that provision depends on mutual consent-but, of course, if a witness was not prepared to accept the provisions of an oath by mutual consent, it would be in order for the inquiry to draw conclusions about the veracity of the evidence that was then adduced.

Dr. Tony Wright: Let me try to be additionally helpful on that point. Surely the essential difficulty is that the Inquiries Act abolished the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, which required a resolution of this House. Under that Act, all the powers that we are talking about were included. Parliament has given up the ability to enforce these provisions and needs to rediscover it.

• Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am delighted to say to him that if he is in the House on 7 July, he will hear that a ten-minute Bill in my name, the parliamentary commissions of inquiry Bill, will be introduced that restores the right of the House to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman's Committee has recommended-that is, to be able to set up parliamentary commissions of inquiry independent of the Executive. That is exactly what this House should have the power to do.

It surely cannot be right for witnesses to limit their preparedness to provide evidence. That means that someone cannot breeze in and say to the inquiry, "Right, I've got an hour and then I'm off to Dusseldorf. I'm sorry, but that's what you've got, so please ask your questions and then I will be on my way." Frankly, we have seen that happen when people have appeared before Select Committees and it must not happen before an inquiry.

As has already been said, the inquiry has an enormous remit and it breaks down into various parts. I welcome the fact that it has a large remit, but I do not welcome the almost interminable delay in producing any response that might be occasioned by the size of the remit. It is important that we therefore have phasing-I do not why the Foreign Secretary finds this amusing. It is quite clear that conduct before the war is quite different from the conduct of the war, which is quite different from the peacebuilding operation. It is perfectly proper for the inquiry to consider those matters separately and in turn and to produce interim reports. I see absolutely no reason why, in the first instance, it should not consider the matters that preceded the involvement of the United Kingdom in this conflict and report on that. It does not need to take a huge amount of time from now for that to happen. I strongly commend to the inquiry that it phases its work in such a way. If we can assist by giving an indication from this House that that would be our preference, I think that we should.

The Iraq war was, in the view of many of us, a quite massive failure of British foreign policy that was aided and abetted by those on both sides of the House who were not prepared, perhaps, to consider the evidence with sufficient assiduity. It is essential that we form a view, that we learn from experience and that we provide the truth, as far as we can, by means of this inquiry. That will help all those who have enormous concern about the conduct of the war-they expressed it at the time and have expressed it since-all those who have been involved through the military and who have seen at first hand the difficulties, and all those who wanted the rebuilding of Iraq to take place with greater coherence of strategy and policy than was the case.

Until we have a proper open, transparent, rigorous public inquiry into these matters, those lessons will not be learned. That is why I will recommend that my right hon. and hon. Friends support the motion tabled in the name of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. I hope that the House will speak clearly on this matter, because I do not believe that the Government will not take acquiescence with their proposed amendment today as approbation for the inquiry that they seek. I do not believe that the matter will come back to the House again on a Government motion. I believe that this is the last time that we will have the opportunity to speak on it and we must make our voices heard.

• . . Menzies Campbell (Fife North East, Liberal Democrat)

Not for the first time, I find myself in complete agreement with Mr. Marshall-Andrews. I believe that the decision to join the United States in an illegal war against Iraq was based upon a flawed premise and has done catastrophic damage to British interests. That may well disqualify me from membership of a committee of investigation, but it most certainly does not prevent me from passing judgment on the form of that committee and its composition.

The Government have been partially saved from themselves by Sir John Chilcot, by General Sir Mike Jackson and by the many people who have publicly said that they accepted and, indeed, wished that proceedings in which they might feature should be in public. This evening, Parliament can save the Government further by passing the motion that stands in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, because the responsibility for the establishment of the inquiry should rest with this House. Anything else is a dereliction of our duty.

There are no precise terms of reference. That issue has been somehow brushed aside. How will we test the committee's success unless we test its conclusions against the terms of reference? There are no members with military experience. Who understands the pressures of command when sending 40,000 young men and women into the middle east-with the prospect at least of casualties-at the same time as following the established principle that one takes one's instructions from one's political masters? No one does, other than someone who has had to discharge those responsibilities.

Who understands the political responsibility other than someone who has been associated with a decision to deploy British forces in circumstances where they may lose their lives or be injured? Assessors are no substitute for this reason: assessors advise; they do not decide or take upon themselves the responsibility for the decisions that are made. Parliament tonight should assert itself; it should assert itself to own the process; and it should set the conditions for the inquiry. They should include, in order to put aside any questions of uncertainty, a specific power to compel witnesses to attend and to put them on oath.

There is now no dispute but that the most sensitive material touching on intelligence cannot be heard in public. However, we should have a presumption that everything will be heard in public unless the national interest demands it. Government embarrassment and national interest are not synonymous with each other; they are wholly separate and distinct.

I shall set out some questions that I hope the inquiry will address. What was the then Prime Minister's motive in establishing a policy of standing steadfastly by the Bush Administration? Did the Cabinet agree with that policy? Did the Cabinet ever discuss that policy? Is it the case that by July 2002 at a meeting in Downing street, the minutes of which have been leaked, as it happens to The Daily Telegraph, Mr. Blair was committed to military action along with the United States? Is it the case that by that meeting Mr. Blair was committed to regime change?

When did the Cabinet first discuss military action? When did the Cabinet first discuss regime change? And on how many occasions thereafter did it discuss either or both implications of Government policy? Why did the Cabinet not see the Attorney-General's full opinion of 7 March 2003, before military action commenced? Who took the decision that the Cabinet should see only the one-page answer to a question no doubt placed by arrangement in the other place? Why did the Chief of the Defence Staff insist on specific legal advice on the legality of what he was being asked to do? Was the Cabinet advised that the intelligence assessment was that war against Iraq would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom? If not, why not? Was the Cabinet informed that the 45-minute claim related only to battlefield nuclear weapons?

What do those questions have in common? None raises an issue of intelligence sensitivity. They can all be asked and they can all be answered in public, and they should be so.

• . . Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

It seems a long time since 15 February 2003. Much has changed for me in that time. I was then not an elected politician-I had not even been elected to Leeds city council, never mind as a Member of Parliament. I was one of the many-perhaps as many as 2 million-who marched on the streets of London in an unprecedented display of public protest that the Government were even considering taking this country into an illegal war. I was joined by my then girlfriend-now my wife, I am happy to say-who was one of the many who were not political people and who had never protested before in their lives. She took to the streets because she was so concerned about what might be done in her name.

A lot has changed since then for this House, too. We have had a general election-some Members left and some new faces, including me, joined. We have a new Prime Minister-indeed, a few weeks ago, we thought that we were going to have yet another Prime Minister. But the reality is that, not long after that march in February 2003, this House, which at the time seemed so immune to and out of touch with what the country felt, voted to approve the invasion of Iraq.

Barry Gardiner (Brent North, Labour)

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that on 18 March 2003, the opinion polls showed that 56 per cent. of the population were in favour of the war?

• Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman shows how out of touch with the public he remains. That is also what the Government have achieved with their bungling of the attempt to introduce a half-baked inquiry into Iraq. We all know that it was introduced only as a sop to Labour Back Benchers to try to save the Prime Minister's political life a few weeks ago. Close scrutiny shows that, once again, the Prime Minister has taken his blunderbuss and shot himself in both feet.

We now have an inquiry that will not even have the power to summon witnesses before it, and witnesses will not necessarily be speaking under oath. After everything that has already come out about this sorry affair, how can the public possibly trust witnesses who are not speaking under oath? The members of the inquiry team will be hand-picked by the Government from establishment figures. Yes, this House is right to be concerned that we will not have a say in who the members should be. We should be far more concerned, however, that general public should find the members credible. The general public must believe that the committee is credible, or it is not even worth starting the exercise.

Of course, I shall support the Opposition motion; however, I have to disagree with something that Mr. Hague said. He said that this is not about who was right and who was wrong. I am afraid that it is. It is time for all those who voted for the war to admit that they were wrong. That is patently obvious.

I pay tribute to Mr. Sarwar, who has acknowledged that he made a mistake. It would be interesting to get a list of all those who voted for the war who have now had the courage to say that they were wrong, for whatever reason, and that they regret that decision. It is certainly a decision that they should regret.

The wording of the Government amendment is interesting. It says that we wish to "establish the lessons to be learnt". Surely the main lesson is not to manipulate and misrepresent intelligence to justify sending British soldiers into an illegal war that is to be waged by America. We do not need an inquiry to tell us that. However, we do need an inquiry to tell us how and why that disastrous decision was ever reached and to find out whether the House was deliberately misled.

I share the concerns that have been expressed about extending the remit of the committee. We must consider what happened afterwards, but we must first get closure for this country on why we went into the war in the first place. I echo the comments made by Alan Simpson, who talked about punishment. We are now talking about having a one-year jail sentence for Members who abuse their expenses. What punishment should we have for a Prime Minister who deliberately misled the House of Commons and the British public into an illegal and immoral war? That is a question that we should be asking as part of the process. We simply cannot hide from it.

I am sure that we have all seen the ghost of Tony Blair over the past week. We still see his hand on the shoulder of the current Prime Minister. The sad reality is that although George W. Bush is discredited and did not get away with the illegal invasion of Iraq, as usual, "Teflon Tony" did. The only way to change that is to get him in front of a public inquiry, under oath, and finally get to the bottom of that decision.

If anyone doubts what I have said, the former Prime Minister, at the same Dispatch Box from which he misled the people of this country, once said something that was entirely untrue about me. He never had the decency or honour to apologise for that. What hope do we have that he will ever apologise for his disastrous decision?

There is a lot of talk about whether Tony Blair influenced the decision to have the inquiry held in private. I think that just about everyone on the Government Benches realises that that has done them a great deal of damage. Frankly, it does not matter, because Tony Blair's legacy is that it does not matter what the truth is, but simply how it is presented. Let me quote a supporter of the war, Bruce Anderson, from The Independent on 22 June. He said: "Especially in Britain, policy towards Iraq was founded on a lie, because the Prime Minister could not admit his real...motive: regime change."

That quotation comes from someone who supported the decision to go into war. The reality, however, is that the current Prime Minister took part in that decision. In May 2007, he said "I take my responsibility as a member of the Cabinet for the collective decisions that we made, and I believe that they were the right decisions". The reality is that millions of people in this country do not believe that the decisions were right, but they do believe that we have the right to find out exactly why they were taken.

The expenses scandal of the past few weeks has brought this House into disrepute. The decision to take this country into an illegal and immoral war brought the Government into disrepute. If we are to restore public confidence in the House and the Government, we need a proper inquiry and not the half-baked one that the Government are trying to get away with. We need a genuine inquiry that will finally give the answers needed to put this sorry issue to rest and to restore credibility in this House and this Government.

The people who marched in February 2003, some of whom had never marched before, deserve a proper inquiry. The fallen soldiers and their families must have that. If we want to restore faith in our democracy, we must demand it. If the biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez does not warrant a public inquiry, what does? This House failed the nation in 2003. It must not do so again this evening.