Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what date they expect to agree with the Chilcot Inquiry for the publication of the Inquiry report.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity, through the usual channels, to contribute today in a Question for Short Debate on the disturbing delays that appear to be building up in the publication of the much and long-awaited Chilcot inquiry report. The long-distance background to this goes back to the illegal war in Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent inquiry by Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues. At least one political party in this country—I am proud to say that it was the Liberal Democrat party—marched officially as a party to protest against the war. The estimated million to 1.5 million marchers going along Piccadilly were subsequently all disappointed that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, completely ignored their representations on the biggest march that had taken place in Britain in recent times.

I pay tribute to the newspapers and the press in Britain who followed this, especially the Guardian. I assure noble Lords that there is no consortation in any way in this respect. It is just another way to thank the Guardian for its relentless pursuit of the hacking scandal in this country. Its pursuit was much more than that of any other newspaper. Sometimes the Independent managed to keep up, for which we are grateful. The way in which the press generally dealt with it was much less thorough than in the Guardian. The same thing has applied on an unrelenting basis to the delays to Chilcot. It is with deliberate intent that I quote mostly from the Guardian.

On 29 October, I put down a Question to the then Leader of the House, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I asked,

“Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the chairman and secretariat of the Iraq Inquiry about possible delays in publication of its report due to responses from officials of the government of the United States”.

I was most grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. He said:

“The drafting of the inquiry’s report and the contents are entirely a matter for the inquiry, which is independent of government”.

I made a supplementary point and I said:

“We remember, of course, the many thousands of Iraqi civilians, including women and children, who were killed after this illegal invasion. Will my noble friend the Leader of the House reassure the House that the Government will attach every meticulous attention to the contents of the report when eventually it is published? It is a very long process and the sooner it is published the better, but there is still a considerable delay. The particular implications of eventual submissions to the ICC should also be borne in mind”.

I was most grateful when the Leader of the House added that,

“my noble friend is correct to draw attention to the report. I can confirm the seriousness with which the Government will accept the report. It perhaps is worth pointing out that Sir John Chilcot, the chairman of the inquiry, has advised that the inquiry will be able to submit its report to the Prime Minister once it has given those who may be subject to criticism in the report the opportunity to make representations to the inquiry before the report is finalised”.—[Official Report, 29/10/12; col. 406.]

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for going into detail on this but that is the very serious background to it.

I fast-forward to 23 November 2013 and, once again, the excellent details in the Guardian, which stated:

“The Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been locked in dispute with top Whitehall officials over their refusal to release crucial records of conversations between Tony Blair and George W Bush”.

I quote further from the same article:

“Sir John Chilcot and his panel have seen the documents but have been told they cannot disclose them. He has told Cameron that without a decision on what he has described as documents central to the inquiry, he cannot go ahead with the … ‘Maxwellisation’ process”.

The article goes on:

“Blair is one of those most likely to be criticised for his handling of the crisis that led to the Iraq invasion”.

I am delighted to see the former Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in his place today and I thank him for coming to speak in this debate—as I thank the other speakers. Going back a week to 15 November, again in an article in the Guardian, there was his call—which he gave me permission to mention—to get this report published as soon as possible. The first paragraph of this piece by Richard Norton-Taylor states:

“The former Labour foreign secretary, Lord Owen, has criticised Tony Blair and the coalition over the refusal to release key evidence about what Blair told George Bush in the runup to the invasion of Iraq. Blair's position was an ‘intolerable affront to democratic accountability’, Owen told the Guardian”.

Several paragraphs later, the article states:

“Owen said the whole dispute should be arbitrated by the lord chancellor, who is responsible for the release of official records, rather than any cabinet secretary … ‘Chilcot and his colleagues should stand firm and not be bullied,’ Owen said”.

I was grateful indeed for the noble Lord’s remarks and I look forward with great interest to his further remarks in this debate.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for being here. He is a doughty fighter for justice and morality in politics, in social matters and in the kind of emergency that arose from Iraq. I know he has somewhat different views so I shall be careful not to add any further comments.

I am equally grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, for his attendance today. Many of us are fans of his famous programme on BBC Radio 3, “Private Passions”. He will not mind me sounding corny when I say that we in this debate today have a public passion collectively for getting at the truth of the delays to Chilcot. To make matters worse, with all these delays and no proper explanations coming from government circles or anybody else, and allowing for the fact that Cabinet Secretaries are inhibited in anything that they might do or say—that is a serious problem in the public sector, which we have to admit and understand—I and others were quite appalled that last Friday, 27 June, an article in the Guardian said that there is now a further delay in the publication of this report. The main paragraph in that article states:

“Sir John Chilcot announced last month”—

that is, in May, as the article was written at the end of June—

“that after years of heated disputes with successive cabinet secretaries, and discussions with Washington, he had agreed to a settlement whereby summaries, and ‘the gist’, of more than a hundred records of conversations between Blair and George Bush in the runup to the invasion, and of records of 200 cabinet discussions, would be published, but not the documents themselves. Chilcot has described the content of the documents as ‘vital to the public understanding of the inquiry’s conclusions’. In a letter to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, last month, Chilcot said ‘detailed consideration’ of the information he has requested had begun, adding ‘it is not yet clear how long that will take’”.

With regard to this delay, I think “disgrace” is the right word to use, and I use it sadly. I do not wish to, but I think that is the essence of the matter.

The same article states:

“Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, said: ‘How painfully ironic that Britain used force in 2003 when it was manifestly illegal, but will … not do so now in response to a request from the government of Iraq, when it would more arguably be lawful’”.

It continues:

“Sands, a close follower of Chilcot and earlier inquiries into the invasion of Iraq, added: ‘The situation in Iraq today is terrible and tragic, but it’s a futile exercise to speculate as to the exact connection with decisions taken in 2003 … It would be more sensible to reflect on what might be learnt from the mistakes of the past.’ He continued”—

I support this question—

“‘Who exactly is responsible for the delay [in the Chilcot report] is unclear, but it is hard to avoid the suspicion that political considerations might have come into play’”.

This House and the whole of this Parliament need information on this. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for attending this debate and replying to us today. I hope that we will have some good answers from him in so far as he can deal with these delicate and sensitive matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I understand fully what the noble Lord says and indeed what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, has said. I stress that this is an independent inquiry that the Government have stood back from, so the Government do not control what is happening in it. However, I entirely understand that when it is published it will be for Parliament, and a number of parliamentary committees, to take on board how much information was given and what the implications are for further information from the agencies and other aspects of government. That will be part of the follow-on to publication.

[Lord Dykes]

The noble Baroness was rightly concerned about the delay in Maxwellisation. My noble friend has just said that there is now a further delay in the letters going out. That seems to be excessive, bearing in mind all the delays that there have been so far. Could he explain to the House why there is this further delay?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Maxwellisation process, in which those who are named in various aspects of the report are given a chance to look at those areas where they are named, depends of course on the prior decision being complete about exactly what will be used in the report. The most sensitive areas will be those that involve the minutes of Cabinet meetings and discussions with the United States. That is why you cannot go on to the Maxwellisation process until you have finalised the question of how far you are able to publish. I reassure noble Lords that my understanding is that the inquiry is trying extremely hard to publish as much as possible. This is an unprecedented expansion, lifting the traditional veil of secrecy that has covered Cabinet meetings and other such things in the past.

A number of noble Lords raised other questions. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that it was a historic mistake not to have a Suez inquiry. I would say that his remarks on the Cabinet Secretary were ungenerous. The Cabinet Secretary who was originally put in this position was of course the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell; it was the institution of Cabinet Secretary, not the person, and “the Cabinet Secretary” includes those who assist him in the Cabinet Office. From my limited interactions with them, I have to say that they are a first-class team; it is not simply one individual.

The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, talked about rumours that he has heard in Washington. We have all heard many rumours in Washington. Since I am not privy to what is in the inquiry at present, I cannot comment on them; no doubt that will come out when the report is published.