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Iraq

My right hon. Friend has made a valid point. It has been said tonight that we have innumerable foreign affairs and defence debates, and we have tried to address the matter in those debates. We do not control what is said, and we must respond to the points that are made. There will be five more defence debates in the near future, and I am sure that there will be many other such opportunities. I am on record as saying that we must constantly make clear what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and anywhere else where our troops are deployed. The short answer to my right hon. Friend’s question is therefore yes. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks did not provide a single idea about how to deal with the present or with the way forward, which leads me to ask what type of evidence he and his party would give the inquiry. I believe that they are going to vote for it to be set up now, so he had better start thinking about what he is going to say, because he did not have an iota or shred of idea about how to move forward. His motives, and those of his party, must be called into question, not because they disagree with our actions in Iraq, but because they want to score a cheap political point to gain political advantage at a difficult time. I accept that that is part of the normal cut and thrust of our parliamentary democracy, but on this occasion it has arisen at a time when our armed forces are engaged in a mighty struggle alongside the legitimate Government of Iraq and their security forces. That is what makes it different. The hard logic is that Opposition parties are asking for an inquiry into the past, probably into the present and—this is not quite clear—into future strategy. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made plain, however, we are at a critical point in Iraq. Is it being suggested that we suspend our analysis of the way forward or change our course of action if required while we await the results of such an inquiry? That could be one implication of the motion. The judgment is that we have got it wrong in the past and present, and will probably do so in future.