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Iraq Inquiry

That will be the subject of some of my speech and perhaps some of the Foreign Secretary's. The issue is not so much that the Government have altered Sir John Chilcot's powers; it is that they have now placed on him the burden of coming up with the proceedings and rules for the inquiry—including how much of it is to be heard in public. If I continue with my speech for a little, there will be an answer to the hon. Gentleman's point. The Government's basic defence of their inquiry proposals is that many of us asked for a Franks-style inquiry and that that is what they consider they have produced. In fact, it is necessary to have only the most cursory acquaintance with the Franks inquiry to know that several of its attributes, which were important in making its processes and findings acceptable to Parliament and the public, were completely missing from the Government's proposals and how they went about them. Meanwhile, the one attribute of the Franks inquiry that almost everyone outside the Government regarded as no longer appropriate—its having been conducted behind closed doors—was the very one that the Government chose to continue with. I shall come to the point about openness or secrecy in a moment.