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Iraq

My Lords, that was rather a curious and at times rather unsatisfactory reply—but I will come to that in a moment. I thank everyone who has taken part in this short debate. The fact that there have been 25 speakers speaks volumes for the feeling and urgency with which the House regards the subject. There have been powerful speeches. Obviously I do not have time to go through them all. Suffice it to say that most of those who spoke from all parts of the House backed the proposal for an inquiry and for it to be set up now. Even those who did not seemed to raise so many questions that they might reflect that a comprehensive inquiry is about the only way in which they will ever be answered. I was encouraged by what the Minister said at the start of his reply when he said that we as a nation needed to discover the facts. He then set out a series of questions which, frankly, summarised the case we have been making for having an inquiry now to look at exactly these issues. I thought that he made our case. He stressed—I think I cite him accurately—the need to come to a more definitive conclusion. That is what I and my colleagues and noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches, the government Benches and the Cross Benches have been saying for the past four hours. It seems that the Government’s case is not whether there should be an inquiry, but when. They have accepted the principle of an inquiry. To that extent we have moved forward from February’s position, and that is significant indeed. The Minister then argued, and this was the great disappointment of his speech, that an inquiry could not take place now because we needed some ““distance of perspective””. I was not sure what the phrase meant. However, I should point out that we are approaching the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the conflict when the troops went in. How many years will we have to wait before the Government believe that the time is ripe? Regrettably, I do not accept the Minister’s case. He might reflect that there has not been overwhelming support—I could put it much more strongly—for the Government’s stance. Like the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I do not accept that we are doing enough for the 4 million refugees that have been tragically created by this conflict. Above all I do not accept that an inquiry cannot be set up until all the troops have been withdrawn. If that is so, this is will drag on year after year and Ministers will, as the Minister did today, unhappily come to the Dispatch Box and make the kind of defence that he offered. As my noble friend Lord Lamont said, simply the scale of deaths in Iraq—is it 100,000; it may be 150,000—makes the case for having an inquiry now. We would not dream of allowing that to simply pass by in any other circumstances. We cannot just blame the Americans for a lack of planning. It is a convenient argument, but, as my noble friend Lord Tugendhat said, it begs every question in the book about our relationship. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, that we must move forward. Of course we must. But surely we should move forward on the basis of the lessons that can and should be learnt about this conflict. I am putting a bipartisan point. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that this issue will not go away. I agree with him and with my noble friend Lord King that Parliament should assert itself here. This is a bipartisan issue. Parliament should insist that an inquiry take place and that it take place now. I very much hope that it will. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers. Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.