Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

A lot of things have changed since that evidence was produced in the way it was, and one of the most important things is the renewed independence and practices of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Ministers still see individual pieces of intelligence, and one wants to have a regular update, but the process of producing JIC reports and assessments is incredibly rigorous. I do not think that what happened could happen again in the same way, because the reports that we get from that Committee are now much clearer about what it knows, and what it thinks or conjectures, rather than anything else. I think we can avoid that situation. However, that does not solve the problem for the House of Commons, because it is impossible to share all that intelligence information widely with every Member of Parliament.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

May I join others in paying tribute to the servicemen and women, and the hundreds of thousands of civilians, who died in the conflict in Iraq? One of the greatest scandals of this whole episode is the lack of resources for our troops who were sent into battle without the equipment they needed, and that must never be allowed to happen again. Will the Prime Minister say why he believes that the national security machinery that he has established would have forestalled the evident mistakes made in Whitehall in the run-up to the commitment in Iraq?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he says. On the specific issue of equipment, money for our armed services is not infinite, but we have got rid of the black hole in the defence budget so that resources and commitments are more in balance. By having a security and defence review every five years—we have had two since I have been Prime Minister—we are matching what we are spending to the things that our forces and security require. That is a big improvement, but it depends on having the resources. I have tried to explain why the National Security Council architecture helps to solve some of those problems, but I am not standing here saying, “You can completely reduce any risk of mistake, planning, and all the rest of it”, because these things are by their nature very complicated.