Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, commend the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, on securing this debate. I share with him and others the concern and frustration at the serious delay that has, I fear, damaged the credibility of the Iraq inquiry. However, like all the other speakers, I do not believe that discharging the inquiry would be sensible. In my view, that would send us back to square one, and for us now effectively to go back to the drawing board would be a great mistake. Indeed, were that course adopted, we might never, after all the expenditure of time and money, secure a final report—and securing an authoritative report is vital in the public interest.

What is required now is for the full report to be completed and published as quickly as reasonably possible. The public, those involved in the events of and around the Iraq war, within and outside the armed services—in particular, the families of the casualties— deserve nothing less than a thorough and convincing report within a clear and achievable timetable.

This inquiry has exposed a serious weakness in our arrangements for inquiries, whether or not established under the Inquiries Act 2005. Unfortunately, and no doubt in the interests of protecting his independence and that of his inquiry, Sir John’s correspondence has reflected the view that timetabling is a matter for the inquiry and is almost entirely free from scrutiny. Indeed, he resisted providing a timetable until 13 October, when he promised to write to the Prime Minister by 3 November with a timetable to completion. I agree with the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Falkner that that was probably in response to the tabling of this debate. As recently as 8 September, Sir John had written thus to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee:

“There is, inevitably, further work for my colleagues and I to do to evaluate these submissions”—

he was referring to the Maxwellisation responses—

“which are detailed and substantial, in order to establish with confidence the time needed to complete the Inquiry’s remaining work. As soon as I am able to I shall write to the Prime Minister with a timetable for publication of the Inquiry’s report”.

I do not accept the view of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that there is no need for the Maxwellisation process, but I suspect that its management has been insufficiently strict. I also suspect that, had a senior judge been in charge, with experience of bringing difficult cases to readiness for trial, much tighter deadlines would have been imposed, and imposed publicly. The need for a public timetable is one of the things we should stress. I cannot believe, for example, that any individual needs more than two months to respond to indicative criticisms. I am also clear that only one response should be permitted, in the absence of the most exceptional circumstances, to avoid the process that fairness requires becoming a negotiation. In my view, the chairperson of the inquiry should publicly set out a timetable, subject to necessary adjustment, with a clear explanation of any need for extension.

When the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced the inquiry in 2009, he said that he was advised that it would take a year. It is unacceptable that, more than six years on, we have had only partial explanations for the delay, despite Sir John’s evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee in February of this year. For my part, I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord that I see no reason why this inquiry was not established under the Inquiries Act 2005. The Select Committee on the Act, established under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland, which reported last year, recommended that,

“inquiries into issues of public concern should normally be held under the Act. This is essential where Article 2 of the ECHR is engaged”,

as it is, of course, loosely, in this case.

Sir John, in his evidence to the Select Committee, did not agree. He felt that the power of compulsion contributed to an overly formal or court-like adversarial process, and said:

“The absence of legal powers to subpoena witnesses and to take evidence on oath was also the subject of debate when the Inquiry was launched…In my statement of 30 July [2009], I said that the Inquiry is not a court of law and nobody is on trial, and that remains the case”.

I disagree with Sir John as to the thrust of that. I regard the power of compulsion, along with firm time management, as essential. It is also quite clear that the protection of national security can be properly managed on an inquiry under the Act. There is a strong case for the Act to be amended to give the commissioning Minister the power to require the inquiry chairman to give a full timetable for his work at the outset and keep it updated as the inquiry develops, much as this House often does when establishing committees to report to the House.

I do not believe that an interim report on the basis of the evidence gathered would be helpful. Such an interim report would be no more than a recitation of the evidence to date, without conclusions or recommendations, or it would draw provisional conclusions open to reversal at a later stage. A record of evidence without the conclusions would be of limited use because the whole purpose of an inquiry is to draw such conclusions, and without them, the report—interim or not—is of no help. Moreover, I agree strongly with others who have spoken that an interim report containing the evidence and interim conclusions would be confusing and unsatisfactory. It would leave the inquiry open to charges of interference if any of the provisional conclusions were altered, and neither set of conclusions—interim or final—would command any respect. If they turned out to be the same, the final conclusions would be criticised on the basis that they were reached precisely in order to accord with the interim conclusions—by definition, the incompletely considered conclusions. If the conclusions were different, then the final conclusions would be criticised for inconsistency with the provisional conclusions earlier expressed.

Therefore, let us await the timetable for publication on 3 November in the hope that this debate has brought home to the public and the inquiry members the importance of completing an authoritative work and producing a report with expedition.