Chilcot Inquiry

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Trimble

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Maxwellisation process is unavoidably a lengthy one. Noble Lords who served on the post-legislative scrutiny committee on the Inquiries Act last year—a particular special committee—raised the question of the length of time it took to carry through this process. There are issues of fairness and equity in making sure that those who may well be sharply criticised by a report should have the right to see those criticisms and comment on them before publication. That is the process that is now under way and, unfortunately, it does take some time.

[Lord Trimble (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Trimble; he may not be, but I am. Will the Minister reassure the House that the Government understand that the delays in publishing Chilcot—whether justified or not—are eroding public confidence in the report and in the inquiry process itself? Even allowing for the fact that this is an independent report, is there really nothing that the Government can do to impart some urgency and immediacy to this matter?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the purpose of inquiries is to restore public confidence, but it would be highly desirable if this report had been completed and published by now. There have been a number of reasons for the delay, and this is not the first time that an inquiry has taken, sadly, a lot longer than was originally hoped.

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, in reply to an earlier question, the Minister referred to the numerous documents that had to be sifted and I am sure that he was absolutely right. Does he not agree with me that this is where having a good-quality counsel for an inquiry is essential? Am I right in thinking that Chilcot decided that he could do without such a person?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not so sure that the quality of the counsel in this case was important. As I understand it, it was the sheer volume of documents that had to be sifted, a number of which were discovered to be relevant at a later stage of the inquiry, and then the whole question of what could be released. This is a very new kind of inquiry in terms of the amount of highly classified material—much of it relating to discussions with other Governments—that will be released.

Public Disorder

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Trimble

Thursday 16th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I might well have anticipated that question, as it comes up on all possible occasions. The Government are giving the police all the support that they can. I am informed that a number of the people arrested after demonstrations are people identified as having been wearing masks, but if they have also been identified as taking part in more serious offences, they will be charged for the more serious offences first.

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, will the Minister please think about this point again? The offence as currently on the statute book is very tightly drawn and, consequently, means that policemen engaged in a situation will be very cautious in their approach to things. We might like to take into account the experience in Northern Ireland, where, for decades, it was an offence simply to wear a mask in public, and it did not cause any of the difficulties alluded to earlier.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one simply has to ask whether it helps when police are attempting to control a very large demonstration to ask for police snatch squads to try to go in to the middle of a demonstration to seize particular demonstrators, which is in effect what the noble Lord is asking for. We have to leave this to the judgment of the police on the day. I am assured that a number of those who were wearing masks and, for example, in the 24 November demonstration, vandalising a police van in the middle of Whitehall were identified afterwards and some of them have been arrested.