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Armed Forces (Parliamentary Approval for Participation in Armed Conflict) Bill

I will in a moment, but I want to answer the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett). He said that the motion in November 2002 was not about war. The motion stated that we supported UN resolution 1441 and that this was Iraq’s last opportunity to conform to it. There was a strong implication that the consequences for Iraq would be dire if it did not comply and, if the hon. Gentleman consults Hansard, he will see that every speech in the debate, from Government and Conservative Front-Benchers, and especially from the Liberal Democrats, was about whether we should go to war. The debate in November was about whether it was justified for us to go to war with Iraq. Had the vote been lost, the Prime Minister would presumably have had to say, ““The House of Commons has concluded that we should not go to war with Iraq, therefore we won’t.””