Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Alex Salmond

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond]

If the right hon. Lady will forgive me, I will make some progress.

The report in the Library from Dr Glen Rangwala analyses this in enormous detail and I hope Members read it, although even that report is not exhaustive. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) in the Chilcot debate in July listed five, as he put it, clear instances of misrepresentation in a single speech from the Prime Minister—in the war speech, the greatest speech of his life, in March 2003. I want to look at just three of the key things that have arisen and that we now know about from the Chilcot report.

The first of those things is the question of prior commitment. Through the long debates on Iraq, many of us suspected that the Prime Minister had given commitments to the American President which were unrevealed to this House and to the public. The Chilcot report outlined these in spades. The famous phrase

“I will be with you, whatever”

will go down in infamy in terms of giving a commitment. Chilcot says that after giving such a commitment it would be virtually impossible for the Prime Minister to withdraw from it.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

My constituent Mr Matt Walton, an ex-serviceman, contacted my office several months ago regarding the Chilcot report. Matt is clear that Mr Blair’s actions ensured that many of his colleagues’ tragic fates were already decided before they left the UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is an outright scandal that ex-members of the armed forces are even thinking this way, and that the then Prime Minister has utterly let down those who were allegedly sent out to protect us?

[Alex Salmond]

I very much support the view of my hon. Friend.