Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Debate between Earl Howe and Baroness Jowell

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

Yes, undoubtedly so. It is perhaps one of Sir John’s most serious criticisms in the report that going to war in this instance was not the last resort and that there were diplomatic avenues still open at the time that the order was given to commence military action. I am sure that all noble Lords would agree that that should never happen again.

[Baroness Jowell (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his repetition of the Prime Minister’s Statement. Like my noble friend Lord Blunkett, I was a member of the Cabinet which supported the invasion. It is very important that the people of our country benefit from the lucidity of the report by Sir John Chilcot and his team, and are able to make sense of the many claims and counterclaims that an issue which has aroused such passion creates. However, will the Minister join me in recognising three certainties that have emerged from the report? First, there was no falsification of the intelligence; secondly, the Cabinet was not deceived; and, thirdly, there was no undisclosed plan made between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States to go to war before the processes of government were invoked. We obviously all have to bear responsibility for the judgments but it is important to start with an assertion of fact.

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I have had precisely an hour, prior to its publication, to look at the executive summary of the report. I cannot claim to stand here and recount to your Lordships every nuance of the report; that can only be done over time by us all. I do not have full answers today but, certainly from my reading of the executive summary, there is no question of intelligence being falsified. However, I think Sir John concludes that there was a gap between the ways in which the intelligence was framed and presented to the general public, and that he leaves open the explanation for that. There was certainly no suggestion in anything I read that the Cabinet was deceived nor of an undisclosed plan to go to war, although there was a certain point in 2002 at which Sir John says that the Government committed themselves to a course of action which would have been very difficult to reverse. They did not necessarily commit to military action but committed to a chain of actions which, if unsuccessful, might almost inevitably lead to war. While what the noble Baroness says is correct, there are nuances in this that we all need to take on board.