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Iraq Inquiry

I do stand by my vote and my speech on that occasion. No doubt when the inquiry reports, we will all have time to reflect on who was right and who was wrong. That is one of the reasons for having an inquiry. I was running through the points that the Opposition made over the weekend of consultation before the announcement. We said that the membership of the inquiry, while encompassing people whom we had no call to criticise, seemed to us too narrow. We said in particular that some experience of ministerial office was desirable. The following Monday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition also made the point that military experience was desirable. We further pointed out that the inquiry, as proposed by the Government, would consist of four nominees, none of whom was a woman. The Government went a small way to meeting part of the objection by adding Baroness Prashar to the inquiry membership. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will acknowledge that his statement on the "Today" programme that the five people were approached before the Cabinet Secretary went to talk to the Opposition parties was inaccurate. The fifth, Baroness Prashar, was added only when it was pointed out to Ministers that they had proposed an inquiry too narrow in its membership. In many ways, I am sorry to make these points to the Foreign Secretary, because he is normally perfectly good at consultation with the Opposition. Clearly he was misinformed and not properly briefed on what was happening by a Downing street that does not share his willingness to consult on and agree matters with the Opposition. Let us hope that that emboldens him when he comes to his next opportunity to depose the Prime Minister, which normally recurs about every 12 weeks. The upshot was that the consultation with the Opposition was inadequate and unnecessarily short. Nor did the Prime Minister even bother to consult the armed forces about how an inquiry into this country's largest military endeavour since world war two should be conducted. The Chief of the General Staff, Sir Richard Dannatt, stated last week that he was not privy to the discussions about how the inquiry would be conducted.