The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
I start by joining the chorus of thanks to the Backbench Business Committee, to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and to the many other hon. Members from all parts of the House—some of them have personal experience of serving our country in the armed forces—who contributed to the debate.
This issue could not be more serious or important. As colleagues from all parts of the House have said, this is about how and whether we take the country to war, and whether we have done that in the right way in the past. Even for those, like me, who were not here when the debate and votes were held, there could be no more important or serious issue for us to address. There is a thirst, not only in the Chamber but more widely across the country, for accountability, for closure, and for lessons to be learned.
I will not try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, by going over the history of the war, but I will try to address the questions raised in the debate about what will happen to get the report out as soon as we reasonably can.
John Penrose
It would be premature for any of us to prejudge the results of Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry, but I am certain that everyone—Members on both sides of the House and others more broadly—will look extremely carefully at the conclusions. I am sure that there will be a great many lessons to be learned.
In line with the timetable set out by Sir John Chilcot in his letter to the Prime Minister last October, to which a number of colleagues from all parts of the House have referred, we expect the inquiry’s report to be ready for national security checking in the week beginning 18 April—that is, some time next week. Once Sir John indicates that that is the case, the work will begin. As the Prime Minister promised, it will take no longer than two weeks.
Once that is done, the inquiry team will prepare the report for printing and publication. I should make it clear that at that stage, even when the national security checking process is complete, the report will still be in Sir John Chilcot’s hands and will not be released to the Government until everything is ready. The inquiry team has said that it will complete the remaining work as swiftly as possible, and Sir John Chilcot indicated in his letter to the Prime Minister last October that he expects publication in June or July this year.
I would like to reassure colleagues by providing a little more detail on what national security checking involves, because a number of concerns have been raised about what might or might not happen in that process. National security checking is a legal obligation and a well-established standard process for inquiries that consider sensitive material. It has been used in extremely sensitive reports, including those of the inquiries into Finucane, Bloody Sunday, Billy Wright and Rosemary Nelson, to name just a few. I am sure everyone will agree that the report must not compromise national security or breach article 2 of the European convention on human rights by putting the safety of individuals at risk. It is a limited process with a narrowly defined remit focused solely on ensuring that the inquiry’s report does not put lives at risk.
By making those extremely narrow and clear terms of reference public, I want to reassure everybody, in Parliament and elsewhere, that the process will not and cannot be used to redact or censor material that does not need to be secret, or that might prove embarrassing to Ministers or officials from the time covered by the inquiry. I am also pleased to inform the House that I understand that the inquiry team expects to announce a firmer publication date soon after the national security checking process is complete. That may answer some of the concerns raised by Members from all parts of the House.
Sir John made it clear in his letter to the Prime Minister that he needs to complete several further steps after security checking before he can hand the final version to the Government for publishing. As the House will be aware, the report is very large, with over two million words—about three or four times the size of “War and Peace”—and it will be accompanied by many hundreds of documents. I am told that, because of its size, it will take a number of weeks to prepare it for publication. That matter is under Sir John’s control. Sir John and his team have promised that they will complete the work as swiftly as possible.
I should also reassure the House that I have checked with senior officials in the Cabinet Office and been assured that nothing in the rules of purdah for the EU referendum could provide a reason to delay the publication of Sir John’s report once he delivers it to the Government. We will therefore publish the report as soon as it is delivered to us in its final form by the inquiry team, whenever that may be.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his assistance on this matter. The problem is whether Sir John Chilcot will push that through. Has the work that needs to be done to create such a large piece of work been done? In other words, will the only delay be to allow the Prime Minister to examine the report, or will there be further delays?
John Penrose
I am trying to make it clear that the Prime Minister made a pledge that the Government’s contribution—the national security checking—will be done in two weeks or less, and we will deliver on our pledge. At that point, we will not have control of the report; it will still be in Sir John’s hands. He will need to complete the work. I am sure he will have listened to the tone and tenor of this debate, and he will understand the thirst to see the results of his work, given the frustration at its taking so long. However, we are in his hands—the report, quite rightly, is an independent one, and it needs to be objective and independent of Government—as to the work that remains to be done. From the Government’s point of view, I can say that we promised to get the security checking done within two weeks, and we will.
I want to provide reassurance to my many colleagues on both sides of the House who I know have concerns about the interests of the families of service personnel killed or injured in the war. We will discuss these issues with the inquiry once national security checking is completed, but I understand that the inquiry will make suitable arrangements for families around the date of publication.
In conclusion, I am grateful to all right hon. Members, hon. Members and gallant Members who have contributed to this debate. I think we agree on the need for the report to be published as soon as possible. I am also sure that we all appreciate the wish of the families involved to understand why and how certain decisions were taken, and for us to learn any lessons that need to be learned. This inquiry has looked at complex events, over a nine-year period, that evoke strong feelings on all sides of the political debate. I am sure we all agree that it is vital that the inquiry completes its work to the timetable Sir John Chilcot laid out in his letter to the Prime Minister last October. We will then, at last, have the fully independent, heavyweight, evidence-based report that events of such importance demand. Parliament, the families of service personnel killed and injured in the war, and the country as a whole deserve nothing less.