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Iraq War Inquiry

I very much enjoyed the speech made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who is just leaving the Chamber. As I always do, I am now in a devilish way detaining him. The only note I thought was missing from the right hon. Gentleman's speech was humility. If we take ourselves back to those days in 2002 and 2003, I am afraid that the people in this place who were the great cheerleaders for war were not interested in exploring the kind of questions being asked from the Labour Benches about the legality of the war, and whether there were in fact weapons of mass destruction or whether a false prospectus was at work. None of those questions was at all interesting to the Opposition—[Interruption.]—to the official Opposition, who simply wanted to go further, faster. The courage was shown on the Labour Benches—[Interruption.]—and the Liberal Democrat Benches, where Members interrogated the arguments, and huge numbers of people on the Labour Benches found they could not go with the Government. If there is to be an inquiry, the one inquiry the official Opposition could set up immediately would be why they failed during that critical period—the one time when they needed to be effective. As we now know, they had it within their power to prevent British engagement in the Iraq war. The Conservative party should immediately put in place an inquiry as to why the official Opposition failed during that period.