Chilcot Inquiry (Costs)

Debate between Keith Simpson and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Simpson]

I am grateful, Mr Howarth, and take note of that. I am not going off into a byway—one of my interpretations of “costs” is to do with the lessons of the inquiry, which I think have direct relevance not only to this debate but to the interests of nearly all colleagues in the House of Commons. Naturally, I will take note of what you have said.

The problem always was that the inquiry’s sheer breadth would incur extra costs in every possible sense of the word. Interestingly, the Government considered the historical precedents for the inquiry. They included the two inquiries from the first world war—the special commissions on the Dardanelles and on Mesopotamia—both of which were relatively cheap. The Mesopotamia inquiry reported within a year, and its lessons were immediately applied in 1917, while the financial costs of the Dardanelles inquiry, which lasted until 1919, were also pretty reasonable, although the inquiry did not, of course, have an impact on the conduct of the war. As far as the Government were concerned, however, the immediate precedent was what was called the Falklands inquiry, or the Franks inquiry, which was also a Privy Council inquiry. It reported within six months of being established and, once again, cost a relatively small amount. Once again, however, there was controversy because of the different interpretations regarding how the inquiry was set up and what lessons could possibly be learned from it.

In historical cases, as well as in the Chilcot inquiry, terms of reference are crucial. The important point about the Chilcot inquiry is that it is independent of the Government but relies on them for resources, so there is a cost factor. It is also reliant on them in terms of the cost of clearing secret and confidential documents, including those between the United States President and the British Prime Minister and those involving Departments and intelligence agencies. Will the Minister tell us, based on Government sources, the extent to which such procedures have held up the drafting of the final report, and whether Sir John Chilcot is satisfied that all those matters are now resolved? I will return to that point in greater detail.

In a letter Sir John Chilcot wrote to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, dated 28 May 2014, he said that, in principle, agreement had been reached with the Government on the intelligence and other materials that might be released. Can the Minister tell us what documentation and information has been withheld? If any has been, will that be reflected in the final report? In other words—this may cost more—will sections of the report be flagged up as having been redacted?

A great deal of the delay has been attributed to what is called the Maxwellisation process. For those colleagues who are not too sure what that means, it is the process of warning those who have been criticised in a report and allowing them to respond before publication. It takes its name from the experience of Robert Maxwell, who was criticised in a Department of Trade and Industry report in 1969 and took the Department to court, where the judge ruled he had been unfairly treated. In future, therefore, individuals who were to be criticised would be given advance notice and a chance to comment. Obviously, the Government wanted to allow that not only because there had been a legal judgment, but because they did not—once again, Mr Howarth, I am following your direction—want to incur the costs of legal action.

From Sir John Chilcot’s letter to Sir Jeremy Heywood in May, we can see that the process of Maxwellisation has, in one sense, only just begun. Sir John Chilcot makes it quite clear that, now that everything else has been cleared in principle, it is possible to start the process of Maxwellisation. From reading the documents, I conclude that the delay has been in two parts. One was the negotiation between Chilcot and the Cabinet Office over the US-UK political and intelligence documentation. In addition, until that was resolved, the process of Maxwellisation could not seriously begin—in fact, it has only just begun. We will therefore see more financial costs one way or another.

Given the Cabinet Office discussions with Chilcot, what is the time scale for publication? Can we realistically expect Sir John Chilcot to publish his report before May 2015? That is important because there will be a cut-off date around Christmas—probably just into the new year—when the civil service will say that Chilcot forms part of the pre-election purdah, so the report will be postponed. That has financial costs, but I would suggest that it also has costs relating to the reputation of the British Government and the individuals concerned.

Of course, Chilcot is an independent inquiry into the Iraq war, but can the Minister tell us what departmental inquiries have been held into general or specific aspects of the war, from policy through to implementation and lessons learned, by the Cabinet Office, the National Security Council, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Development, and perhaps the intelligence agencies? We have no idea what individual departmental reports have been done, and whether Sir John Chilcot has had access to them. If he has, that might cut down the time he needs to investigate and the cost of the overall report. Does the Minister have details of any US Government or congressional inquiries into the Iraq war, which may have published documentation that would have been relevant to Chilcot or saved time?

I now return to—literally—the costs of the Chilcot inquiry. According to a House of Commons document, the total financial cost incurred by the inquiry, from its establishment on 15 June 2009 to 31 March this year, was £9,016,500. There is an additional cost of about £1 million for the rest of this year, so we are talking so far about £10 million. Compared with the cost of the major public inquiries, that is not a large amount. Nevertheless, it is a cost on the public purse.

There is also the cost to the reputations, past and present, of Ministers, the military, the intelligence services and the civil service. We in this House would want Sir John Chilcot to be as fair as possible in any criticism he makes of any individuals, so that they have the right not only in law, but in terms of natural justice, to respond. The trouble is that that could go on for a long time, and Sir John Chilcot must have a cut-off point in mind. Has he perhaps indicated what it is to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary?

On the costs in terms of public confidence in Government transparency and the decision to go to war, I understand the practical problems behind the delay, which I have outlined, but the longer the Chilcot inquiry continues without publication, the greater will be the public’s suspicion that the process is not transparent. In addition, the central part of the report, which is about learning lessons, will become mainly historical, although we know that such lessons could have been relevant to more recent events.

Then there is the cost in terms of the relatives’ anguish. The Chilcot inquiry will perhaps not satisfy many of them, but there is a wound there that many of them feel. They want, as far as possible, to get at the truth, and Sir John Chilcot is only too well aware of that.

On the procedures connected with the eventual publication of the Chilcot inquiry, there will presumably be a press conference, and the full report and evidence will go online—we are talking about a report of, possibly, 500 or 600 pages, with several thousand pages of evidence. From Parliament’s point of view, the danger will be that a lot of this will be in the public domain. There will be headlines naming and shaming individuals or organisations before Members of this House and the other place have the benefit of being able to debate the issue. Does the Minister think that the Prime Minister of the day will make a formal statement to the House, which will be duplicated in the other place? Will there be an opportunity for a full parliamentary debate? Colleagues will expect that, and there may even be pressure to have a vote. Will the Government accept the recommendations of the Chilcot inquiry, or will they pick and mix? Does the Minister think that the process will be rather like what happens with a Select Committee, when the publication of a report is followed by a Government response that accepts, or does not accept, some or all of the report?

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He makes a point about a pick-and-mix approach to the report. Although the Saville inquiry was quite different in nature and content, it was also exceptionally expensive and long. However, when it was concluded, the Prime Minister thought and hoped that that would be an end to the matter which, it transpired, was not the case. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important that the expense should be limited and there should be caps on legal fees, but that there should be no pick-and-mix approach on the outcome?

[Mr Simpson]

I have every sympathy for Sir John Chilcot and his inquiry. With such a broad inquiry, he has been tasked almost with an impossibility. On the one hand he wants to get to the truth, within the riding instructions, and wants to be fair to individuals, Departments and agencies. However, at the same time he has been aware—I suspect he would argue this—that the delay has not been his fault, as the Government of the day had major problems in getting agreement about putting information from the Americans in the public domain. It is understandable, for intelligence and security reasons, that there must be negotiation on what can be put in the public domain.

So far, the financial cost has, I think, been reasonable. My concern is that we are almost there, and Sir John Chilcot needs to be minded that while Parliament accepts the pressures on him, we would like the process to be concluded as reasonably as possible. He will present his report with recommendations, and will take questions on that. It will then be up to the Government of the day to say, “We accept all these recommendations,” or “In fact, we only accept some of them.” I suspect that Sir John Chilcot will be criticised by individuals, groups and some of the media for a range of issues that I have raised. As to what some of the families may conclude, if no one is put in the dock as responsible overall for mistakes that were made—taking the country to war illegally and such issues as are all out in the public domain—I suspect that the final Chilcot inquiry report will not end the matter. The Government of the day will have to take a view. It is right for Parliament to debate the matter. Colleagues in both Houses were active in government at the relevant time and will have a view. I fear that if things continue as they are for much longer, Sir John Chilcot will, through no fault of his own, lose public sympathy and perhaps come in for unfair criticism.

The Government do not have direct responsibility for the Chilcot inquiry, which is independent, but they have acted, as it were, as a control mechanism, because they control the flow of Government and non-Government foreign information. I do not think that they have tried to slow the process down, but nevertheless I suspect that the situation has at times proved very frustrating to the inquiry. We live in an age in which more and more people are suspicious of government. When a Government say that there are good intelligence and security reasons for doing something, a significant part of the public no longer accept that, even in terms of our physical security. When we debate issues such as the European arrest warrant, arguments will focus narrowly on that.

I hope that the Minister will be able to answer my questions. In particular, I should like to know from him whether he has had any indication through Sir John Chilcot of a likely notional date for the report to be published, and whether he thinks that there is a cut-off point, when the civil service will say that the period of purdah before the general election is approaching, meaning that that publication may be postponed until after the election.