Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I start by following the noble Lord, Lord Luce, in making a brief reference to Lord Howe, whose funeral was today. I would have liked to attend that funeral, but I decided not to because I felt that I should take part in this debate. However, seeing the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in his place, who attended the funeral, I perhaps made the wrong choice, but I do not think I could have been sure of doing it. I had the privilege of knowing Lord Howe well from 1979, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was a major political figure and a great public servant. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and his family have been very much in my thoughts today.

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. For the most part it will have given deserved comfort to Sir John Chilcot and his team because very many supportive things have been said. I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, made it clear in his remarks that his suggestion that the committee should now be discharged was really a vehicle for the debate rather than a suggestion that he wanted the Government to take seriously. Many speakers have referred to the sense of frustration, which I am sure is shared by Sir John Chilcot and the members of the inquiry itself, that it has taken so long. But although the precise timing of the finish has not yet been specified by Sir John and the team, it is now in sight. To dissolve the committee and to produce a report which is only 90% baked would go a very long way towards wasting all the effort and the resources which have gone into the report so far. It would deny satisfaction to those who have been waiting for a full conclusion on the matters which are of so much concern to so many people, particularly those who lost loved ones in the war. It would require a gigantic learning curve for those who would be charged with taking up the task of producing an interim report, and it would almost certainly take longer than allowing the present team to conclude its task.

There has been much reference, rightly, to the problems which the inquiry has faced. First, as has been said, its terms of reference, settled in the dying days of the last Labour Government, I think in haste and under pressure, were ridiculously wide. They covered everything that happened, both politically and militarily, between July 2001 and 2009. The mind boggles at the number of documents and the number of people involved during that period. In the review which I led into intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, on Iraq alone there were many thousand intelligence reports. The number of documents and the number of people in this case must be many multiples of that. Then, of course, there is also the question of the confidential exchanges with allies, particularly the United States, which has been referred to. That is not a straightforward matter. My sympathies are, as noble Lords might expect, with the Cabinet Secretary in his difficulties over that because, if the President of the United States cannot speak frankly to the Prime Minister of Britain and expect those confidences to be preserved, future presidents will not do so. So that has been a genuine problem and, if I may say so, trying to deal with United States Administrations over the release of papers is also not a matter that you can conduct quickly, as I have found in my experience. Then there is the question of the Maxwellisation process and fair treatment of the people who were criticised. That, no doubt, led to more documents, which had to be accessed and assessed. And so the problem has gone on.

Whatever lessons the inquiry teaches us about the Iraq war, there are, as has been said, lessons to be learned about setting up inquiries of this sort. During my time in Government, I was involved in setting up inquiries and since then I have been set up myself, if that is the right term. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner—I am sure other people who have conducted inquiries would share the view—one does not often get the chance to discuss the job description before an inquiry is announced.

When an inquiry is being set up, there are huge pressures on the Government to widen the terms of reference to cover every angle. If the Government wish to confine the terms of reference, they risk being accused of covering up. I am particularly glad to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, in his place because I was concerned about the setting up of the arms-to-Iraq inquiry. I remember, vividly, that the Government were concerned about the charge that, by bringing a prosecution against Matrix Churchill, they had tried to put innocent people in jail. That was the subject which prompted the inquiry. The Opposition pressed, understandably, for it to be widened to cover the whole subject of the export of arms. The Government, because they did not want to give the impression they had anything to hide, agreed to that and the whole subject was opened up. An inquiry which they had expected to take three months—I do not know what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott expected, I have not asked him—took three and a half years to cover that very big subject.

The experience of the Chilcot inquiry shows that when we press for inquiries to be set up we should be careful what we wish for. In this case, it is a very big subject and it deserves proper treatment. If the inquiry has taken the time it has taken, I think we should judge it by its outcome and be patient until it is delivered.