Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond]

I say again to Labour Members that I am not really interested in the civil war in the Labour party; I am interested in the real war that took place and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Therefore, it is reasonable and important to consider whether parliamentary accountability can be a major weapon of this House in making sure such events do not happen again.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I wish the right hon. Gentleman and Scots everywhere a very happy St Andrew’s day. He mentioned seven parties; none of my party’s MPs in this House has signed this motion. I do not for one minute doubt the sincerity of many Members who have signed the motion and their desire to get to the truth, but is he not, following on from the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), in real danger of turning a very important issue into a party political issue—the SNP trying to attack the Labour party—rather than making it an issue of real national concern, drawing the lessons that need to be learned? That is one of the reasons we did not sign up to his motion.

[Alex Salmond]

I would have been very pleased if the right hon. Gentleman had made it Members from eight political parties signing the motion, but the whole point of the cross-party group, which has been working on this issue for months, is to make it not a straight party political issue. As for attacking the Labour party, I think it is more that Labour Members wish to attack me in this debate, but I do not mind that because I am driving on to make the points of parliamentary accountability and the information we had from the Chilcot report that make it unsustainable to argue other than that this Parliament was grievously misled.

The report in the Library—