Chilcot Inquiry Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Hurd of Westwell Excerpts
Wednesday 28th January 2015

(9 years, 9 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire Portrait Lord Wallace of Saltaire
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My Lords, I entirely agree with that. It is a huge inquiry, which is one reason why it has taken so long. Perhaps the noble Lord has seen Sir John Chilcot’s letter of 20 January in which he said that they had served longer on the inquiry than any of them had anticipated. It has been longer than they expected. One of the issues for the inquiry on historical child abuse currently being set up is that the number of cases over a very large number of years that it is being asked to cover is almost daunting for an inquiry of that sort.

Lord Hurd of Westwell Portrait Lord Hurd of Westwell (Con)
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Can my noble friend give the House an assurance that when the report is finally published it will contain an adequate section explaining precisely what have been the difficulties and obstacles in the way of producing the report earlier?

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Portrait Lord Wallace of Saltaire
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My Lords, it is an independent inquiry, but I will ensure that that gets back to the inquiry itself.