Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for raising this pertinent Question. Before I make the very brief points I would like to make, perhaps I might, by way of a small tribute, say how sad it is that Sir Martin Gilbert, a member of the Chilcot inquiry, has been taken so gravely ill that he is unlikely to return to that kind of work.

We have recently been commemorating—if I may say so, very movingly—the fallen of the First World War. The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, very kindly mentioned “Private Passions”, and one of the pieces we most often get asked to play on that programme is part of the “War Requiem” by Benjamin Britten, setting to music, as it does, the poems of Wilfred Owen.

That is germane to what we are talking about because we owe it to the many people who gave their lives so bravely and to the many families that lost relatives to always look with microscopic attention at the reasons for going to war. We know now that many mistakes were made and we really should be trying to use the example of those errors to never make them again. That is why this inquiry is so terribly important. Then we have the families of those representing us who were bereaved in Iraq and—because of our actions there, arguably—the people who are still losing their lives.

This is an incredibly serious Question and the point that I put to the Minister is that in recent debates about other matters—for example, the police and, indeed, the conduct of Members of this House—the Government reassured us about the importance of the public having confidence in public inquiries, not just inquiries where people are investigating themselves, about which they are all very genuinely worried, but particularly inquiries that concern decisions that cost many people their lives.

I very much look forward to the Minister’s answers because this is a very pressing Question. The point that I put to him is that the public are mystified by what they fear are people covering their backs—by tins of whitewash possibly being opened. Perhaps this is not the case—I would like to think that it is not—but the public need that reassurance and one thing that will reassure them is to stop the shilly-shallying and get this report published.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I hope that the inquiry may have touched in some detail on that issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, said in a very strong way that we need to expose and bring to justice the guilty men. This—as Sir John Chilcot has said on a number of occasions—is not a judicial inquiry; it is a historical inquiry intended to get at the evidence as far as possible. The question of guilt is one which perhaps a number of other people, such as the noble Lord, may wish to push once they have the evidence in front of them.

I hope that I have covered most of the issues. It is ungenerous to say that Sir John Chilcot could have been bullied by the Cabinet Secretary. He and his team have been remarkably robust on this.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

I wish to say, not as a politician but as a member of the public, that the explanations that the Minister is giving are extraordinarily helpful—which is why this debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is very useful. The more that that can be got across to the public—the complexity involved, and the secret documents—the better it will be. I still feel very strongly that we need to get there, but we all think that. It is very helpful that those matters are explained to a wider public. After all, we have a responsibility to the wider public, and we are sometimes out of touch with what they think.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I should also have acknowledged the important point that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made—that it is vital that we maintain and re-establish public confidence in public inquiries and in our political institutions as such. One of the biggest problems, which we all share, is the extent of public and media cynicism about the political process in this country. This inquiry is working with great care. Again, I stress that this is an independent inquiry—the Government are not in charge. The four active members of the Chilcot inquiry group are those who are responsible for what emerges, although of course a great deal of negotiation has gone on about the extent of publication. That is a very important part of ensuring that this is not in any sense a whitewashing inquiry.

On a previous occasion I was criticised by one or two noble Lords for suggesting that the Franks inquiry on the Falklands War was not entirely thorough or rigorous. I went back to the review that I had written in International Affairs on the publication of the Franks inquiry to demonstrate why I still hold that opinion. This inquiry is very thoroughgoing. It is being conducted by a number of people whom I personally trust and respect, and who are unlikely to be defenders of the “secret establishment”, so to speak. We very much hope that the report will appear before the end of the year; the Prime Minister has said that publicly. We are doing all we can—with a number of very hard-working officials, who are themselves doing all they can—to complete the final stages of the process of clearing these very difficult and delicate documents so that we can send out the second stages of the Maxwellisation process to those who will be named in the report. We will then move on from that to the presentation of the report to the Prime Minister and, we hope, to publication as soon as possible.