Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Alex Salmond

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond]

Yes. The loss of faith in the political system is another dramatic consequence of the disastrous events in Iraq.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Salmond]

Let me finish this point, before I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

This point was raised in the Liaison Committee, when Chilcot was asked about weapons of mass destruction. He was asked repeatedly whether a reasonable person could have come to the conclusion the Prime Minister had come to. The best exchanges were between the Chair of the Committee and Sir John Chilcot on the well understood test of a reasonable man. The Chair asked:

“Would a reasonable man—another human being—looking at the evidence come to that conclusion?”

Sir John Chilcot replied:

“If you are posing that question with regard to a statement of imminent threat to the United Kingdom”—

The Chair said: “I am.”

Sir John Chilcot went on:

“In that case, I have to say no, there was not sufficient evidence to sustain that belief objectively at the time.”

Given the length of time the Chilcot inquiry spent considering this exact point, it may be the opinion of many hon. Members that Sir John Chilcot’s expression of this carries rather more weight than that of hon. Members desperate to defend the indefensible.

[Mr Hanson]

Did not Sir John Chilcot, when asked this question in the Liaison Committee, say:

“I absolve him from…a decision to deceive Parliament or the public”.

We cannot have it both ways. We have had the Chilcot report and parliamentary accountability: Chilcot said that the former Prime Minister did not deceive this House or the public.

[Alex Salmond]

The trouble with that intervention is that the right hon. Gentleman does not go on to read the next sentence in that exchange, which I shall read for his erudition:

“However, he also exercised his very considerable powers of advocacy and persuasion, rather than laying the real issues, and the information to back the analysis of them, fairly and squarely in front of Parliament or the public. It was an exercise in advocacy, not an exercise in sharing a crucial judgment”.

English Votes for English Laws

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Alex Salmond

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond]

My hon. Friend, who knows about all these things and has served on almost as many Grand Committees as I have, is undoubtedly correct. That Grand Committee has changed its complexion a number of times, and when it became Scottish Members only, members were not allowed to vote to stop or veto legislation; they could consider legislation on Second Reading and then the legislation came to the full House. In effect, it was roughly what the McKay commission recommended as the answer, although there is actually no answer to the West Lothian question.

My old friend Tam Dalyell posed the West Lothian question precisely because he believed from his study of constitutional history that the only answers to it were either Unionism, which he supported, or independence for Scotland, which I supported. Tam Dalyell did not, and still does not as far as I know, believe there is an answer to the question he proposed, nor, as he would be the first to say, was he the first person to raise that question.

The question was raised in the 19th century. Gladstone considered a similar proposal. I was going to say that it was exactly the same proposal, but the proposal Gladstone considered was much more sensible than the one before us today. None the less, he rejected it, and did so on two grounds. He thought it would be difficult to have a situation where Members of Parliament were going in and out of various votes depending on how they were defined, and he thought it would be too much for the Chair to bear—“for the shoulders of any one man to bear”, if I remember the quote correctly—for the Speaker to have to certify which votes were which and which hon. Members were allowed to vote on which Committees. They say there is nothing new under the sun. All this has been considered before and there is actually a reason why William Gladstone did not come up with this dog’s breakfast before us today.

[Mr Hanson]

That was also because Gladstone lived in Wales and represented a seat in England.

[Alex Salmond]

There are two reasons why William Gladstone did not come up with the dog’s breakfast before us.