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Iraq

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Lieutenant Paul Mervis and Private Robert McLaren, who have been killed in Afghanistan in the last few days. In the course of the Iraq conflict, 179 British servicemen and women lost their lives. They came from all three services: the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and their number also included one Ministry of Defence civilian. Of course, the Iraq conflict caused great division in our politics, our Parliament and our country, but we can all unite over the professionalism and bravery of our armed forces, the service they gave to our country, and the debt we owe to all those who lost their lives. I start with some of the things we agree about in the statement. Yes, we agree about the need for a strong relationship between democratic Iraq and Britain. We absolutely agree about the need for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine and welcome what Prime Minister Netanyahu has said. Yes, we need answers about the conduct of those Iranian elections. But I want to focus my questions on the inquiry announced by the Prime Minister. We welcome an inquiry—indeed, we have been calling for it for many months—but I have to say that I am far from convinced that the Prime Minister has got it right. The whole point of having an inquiry is that it has to be able to make clear recommendations, to go wherever the evidence leads, to establish the full truth and to ensure that the right lessons are learned, and it has to do so in a way that builds public confidence. Is there not a danger that what the Prime Minister has announced today will not achieve those objectives? The membership looks quite limited, the terms of reference seem restrictive, the inquiry is not specifically tasked with making recommendations and none of it will be held in public. So will the Prime Minister answer questions about the following four areas: the timing; the membership; the coverage and content; and the openness? First, on the timing, this inquiry should have started earlier. How can anyone argue that an inquiry starting six months ago, for example, would somehow have undermined British troops? Indeed, the argument that we cannot have any inquiry while troops are still in Iraq has been blown away today by the Prime Minister's saying that some troops will be staying there even as the inquiry gets under way. As for how long the inquiry takes, the Franks inquiry reported in just six months, yet this inquiry is due to take—surprise, surprise—until July or August 2010. Will delaying the start of the inquiry and prolonging the publication until after the next election not lead everyone to conclude that this inquiry has been fixed to make sure that the Government avoid having to face up to any inconvenient conclusions? At the very least, will the Prime Minister look at the possibility of having an interim report early next year? Secondly, on the people conducting the inquiry, what is required for an inquiry such as this is a mixture of diplomatic, military and political experience. We welcome the diplomatic experience, but there must be a question mark over the military experience—there are no former chiefs of staff or people with that sort of expertise. In addition, is it not necessary to include, as the Franks inquiry did, senior politicians from all sides of the political divide to look at the political judgments? The inquiry needs to be, and needs to be seen to be, truly independent and not an establishment stitch-up, so will the Prime Minister look at widening the membership in the way that we have suggested? The third area is the coverage and the content of the inquiry. It is welcome that the inquiry will cover the whole period in the run-up to the war, as well as the conduct of the war, but is it not wrong to try to confine the inquiry to an arbitrary period of time? Should it not be free to pursue any points that it judges to be relevant? On the specific issue of the terms of reference, is it not extraordinary that the Prime Minister said that it should try to avoid apportioning blame? Should not the inquiry have the ability to apportion blame? If mistakes were made, we need to know who made them and why they were made. The Prime Minister was very clear that the inquiry would have access to all British documents and all British witnesses. Does that mean that the inquiry may not have access to documents from the USA, the coalition provisional authority or the Iraqi Government, even if they are kept in the British archive? That is an important specific question and one to which we need an answer. Will the inquiry be free to invite foreign witnesses to give evidence—written and oral? On the scope of the inquiry, will the Prime Minister confirm that it will cover relations with the United States; the use of intelligence information; the function of the machinery of government; post-conflict planning; and how the Department for International Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the armed forces work together? I turn now to the issue of openness and transparency. Given that this inquiry is of interest not only to us politicians but to the public and the families of servicemen and women who gave their lives, should there not be some proper public sessions? Is that not what many will want and many will expect, and is it not part of the building of public confidence that is absolutely necessary? Finally, are not the limitations of this inquiry reflected in the way the House of Commons is being treated by the Government over this issue? Before the Franks inquiry—we are told that this is a Franks-style inquiry—there was a proper debate on the terms of reference of the inquiry on a substantive motion in the House of Commons. This time—[Interruption.] The Prime Minister laughs, but this time there is just a statement and no debate, even though last Wednesday he promised us a new era of parliamentary accountability and democratic renewal. What happened to that? It has not lasted even a week. A proper inquiry must include a range of members, including senior politicians. It needs to have the freedom to range widely and to speak frankly, and its terms of reference must be debated properly in a democracy such as ours. So when the Prime Minister responds, will he put those failings right?