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Iraq Inquiry

I think the Member for Foyle is telling us in the vernacular that the chairman of the inquiry has form in this matter. Governments set up inquiries for two reasons: either to cover something up or to get to the truth. I suspect that this inquiry is all about diversion and ensuring that we do not get to the questions of culpability or the details of how this decision came about and why Parliament was presented with the information that it was. I shall conclude with this point, as my time is almost up. Parliament can make a decision tonight to ask the Government to come back with a better proposal. That is all the Opposition motion says. I would support and welcome that, because it would give us the opportunity to have the kind of inquiry that Members on both sides and with all points of view on the war have asked for. I suspect that we might be getting the opposite, which is an inquiry with terms of reference that allow it to operate in secret and on Privy Council rules, that do not give it the power of subpoena or inquisition, and that do not give it the power to point to the legal responsibility for going to war. As sure as night follows day, whatever decision we make, the demand for the truth will be there and the legal process will be there. Eminent lawyers such as Philippe Sands will not give up, and I suspect that many of the protagonists in the war will at some point end up in the International Court of Justice at The Hague—not because of a process of indiction, but because those of us who believe in international law believe in its protecting us from war, not taking us to war. That is why we must get to the truth, and I hope that we get there tonight.