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Opposition day on Wednesday, 25 March 2009, in the House of Commons, led by Lord Hague of Richmond. The answering member was David Miliband.

Iraq War Inquiry

Iraq War Inquiry. Ninth opposition day debate (part 1). Motion negatived on division (303 to 265). Amendment agreed on division (301 to 265).

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
490 c312-74 
Session
2008-09
Department
Ministry of Defence
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Related items
Iraq: Coalition Regional Commands
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Written statements
House of Commons
Proceeding contributions
Speaker | 490 c337 (Link to this contribution) Order. I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, whic...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c316-7 (Link to this contribution) What I am saying may be relevant to that. We do not know what an inquiry will say. However, I think ...
Show all contributions (143)
Bernard Jenkin | 490 c316 (Link to this contribution) I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend. Is not the point that he is making particularly relevant...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c317 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a reason for an inquiry. It appears from what has been s...
Tobias Ellwood | 490 c317 (Link to this contribution) Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating 7th Armoured Brigade, who did a fantastic job in...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c313-4 (Link to this contribution) Yes, my hon. Friend makes one important analogy, which is very attractive to us as it involves the d...
Lord Redwood | 490 c314 (Link to this contribution) Did my right hon. Friend note that, at the beginning of the debate, there were only eight Labour MPs...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c314-5 (Link to this contribution) I do not think that those on the Government Benches now take enormous pride in the Government's posi...
Malcolm Rifkind | 490 c315 (Link to this contribution) Is not my right hon. Friend's point reinforced by the wording that the Government have chosen for th...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c315-6 (Link to this contribution) As usual, my right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely on the nail. I have pointed out how the Gov...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c316 (Link to this contribution) I shall sweep across the Chamber, starting with my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenki...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c313 (Link to this contribution) That is absolutely right, and it is a point that I have made in at least one of the previous debates...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 490 c313 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman makes reference to the passage of time. He will, of course, be aware that t...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c312 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move,"That this House welcomes the Prime Minister's announcement of 18 December 2008 that a...
Speaker | 490 c312 (Link to this contribution) I inform the House that in both debates, I have selected the amendments in the name of the Prime Min...
Lord Jackson of Peterborough | 490 c313 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend, like me, deprecate the evidence prayed in aid in the Government amendment...
John Barrett | 490 c317 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman said that the News of the World had mentioned the possibility of an inquiry...
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering | 490 c317 (Link to this contribution) I am enjoying my right hon. Friend's speech very much. Does he agree that the contribution made by n...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c317 (Link to this contribution) Of course the mood has changed. The circumstances have moved on in six years. But I think that peopl...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c317 (Link to this contribution) Of course that should be looked at as well. Because we both represent constituents in north Yorkshir...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 490 c318 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. Further to the point made by the ho...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c317 (Link to this contribution) I shall give way one more time, and then proceed with my speech.
Speaker | 490 c318 (Link to this contribution) Order. An intervention should not be a speech.
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c318-9 (Link to this contribution) I think that we got the point, Mr. Speaker. Yes, of course that supports the case for an inquiry—and...
Bob Ainsworth | 490 c348 (Link to this contribution) Let me remind my hon. Friend—I am not sure whether he was here at the time—of what the Foreign Secre...
Jeremy Corbyn | 490 c347-8 (Link to this contribution) Last week saw the sixth anniversary of the parliamentary debate that took us into the war in Iraq. T...
Adam Holloway | 490 c345-7 (Link to this contribution) I totally agree. This is an opportunity to reset the conditions needed to win our struggle against p...
Tobias Ellwood | 490 c345 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend mentioned President Obama. General David Petraeus is one of the most influential gene...
Derek Twigg | 490 c342 (Link to this contribution) Briefly. I am conscious that several other hon. Members wish to speak.
John Barrett | 490 c342 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman recall that at the time it was put by his Labour Government to Saddam Hussei...
Derek Twigg | 490 c344 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, time is tight and many of my hon. Friends wish to speak. The H...
Adam Holloway | 490 c344-5 (Link to this contribution) How did we stumble into this war without understanding how it would evolve, without a strategy for s...
Derek Twigg | 490 c342-3 (Link to this contribution) That was a man who was completely untrustworthy, with a track record of causing conflict and thousan...
John Baron | 490 c343 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
John Barrett | 490 c342 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Paul Truswell | 490 c341 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is constructing an admirable alibi to justify his party's complicity in the decis...
John Baron | 490 c341 (Link to this contribution) I will, but it must be very quick.
Derek Twigg | 490 c342 (Link to this contribution) May I put on record, as I always do in such debates, the fact that I recognise the courage, professi...
John Baron | 490 c341 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has only recently come into the Chamber. As one of those six who ...
Tony Wright | 490 c337-9 (Link to this contribution) With a very few honourable exceptions. It is worth inserting those observations into the call for an...
John Baron | 490 c339-41 (Link to this contribution) First, I concur with the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) on his suggestion that it is pro...
Paul Truswell | 490 c341 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tony Wright | 490 c337 (Link to this contribution) I suspect most of us are quite anxious not to relive all those arguments in our few minutes' speeche...
Adam Holloway | 490 c337 (Link to this contribution) I was a television correspondent during the war in 2003, and most of us in the media and the vast ma...
Tony Wright | 490 c337 (Link to this contribution) These are only preliminary remarks but I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Adam Holloway | 490 c337 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tony Wright | 490 c337 (Link to this contribution) I very much enjoyed the speech made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who is...
Ed Davey | 490 c336-7 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is exactly right. By giving the example of the nuclear question, I wanted the Foreign...
Ed Davey | 490 c336 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I could list a series of other allegations, slightly less wel...
Mike Hancock | 490 c336 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend believe it is important for the inquiry to consider the fact that the then Chief...
Ed Davey | 490 c335-6 (Link to this contribution) I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. Let me be clear, however. I am not suggesting that ...
John Baron | 490 c336 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman rightly pinpoints one example, but he will accept that there have been many other...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 490 c331-2 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman may be aware that five years ago, another of the United States' very junior parti...
Ed Davey | 490 c332 (Link to this contribution) I think the whole House knows the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question. Let me return to the For...
Adam Holloway | 490 c332 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our troops would probably greatly appreciate an inquiry that migh...
Ed Davey | 490 c332-4 (Link to this contribution) I think they would. I am not so sure whether that would fit in with this particular inquiry, as I sh...
Andrew Mackinlay | 490 c334 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for letting me intervene; I would have to go to the Foreign Affa...
Ed Davey | 490 c334-5 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman makes a very strong point, and I hope that Ministers will impose that requirement...
Gregory Campbell | 490 c335 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is coming to a very important point in his speech. Does he agree that one of the ...
Ed Davey | 490 c330-1 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) forensically showed how the Government's posit...
Ed Davey | 490 c331 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend has strengthened my argument. The argument that an inquiry would somehow get in the w...
David Heath | 490 c331 (Link to this contribution) I am very glad that my hon. Friend is laying out the specious nature of the argument that nothing mu...
David Miliband | 490 c329 (Link to this contribution) I have been very careful not to start placing limits on what an inquiry could look at. The purpose o...
David Miliband | 490 c329 (Link to this contribution) In deference to the seniority of the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) I shal...
David Miliband | 490 c327-8 (Link to this contribution) I have not mapped that out, but it would be a substantial number. In the Foreign Office, it would in...
Peter Soulsby | 490 c328-9 (Link to this contribution) Can the Foreign Secretary give an assurance to the House that when an inquiry is eventually held, it...
Keith Simpson | 490 c329 (Link to this contribution) Can the Foreign Secretary explain why our major ally, the US, continues to examine and review the le...
David Miliband | 490 c329-30 (Link to this contribution) That is a bogus argument. As I have just said, the Baker-Hamilton inquiry did not have access to the...
Peter Tapsell | 490 c329 (Link to this contribution) Does the Foreign Secretary understand that the main interest of the country will be in the run-up to...
David Miliband | 490 c329 (Link to this contribution) I do not accept that caricature of the period before 2003. Nor do I accept that the vast bulk of int...
David Miliband | 490 c327 (Link to this contribution) There will certainly be full co-operation with the inquiry, including in respect of the important pa...
Mike Gapes | 490 c327 (Link to this contribution) Yesterday, I met a delegation of Iraqi Members of Parliament, representing all the diverse communiti...
David Miliband | 490 c327 (Link to this contribution) I hear what my hon. Friend says about the need for the inquiry to look beyond the immediate context ...
Bob Spink | 490 c327 (Link to this contribution) I sincerely thank the Foreign Secretary for recognising in his speech and in the Government amendmen...
David Miliband | 490 c327 (Link to this contribution) One advantage of a Franks-style inquiry, as recommended by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks...
David Miliband | 490 c325-6 (Link to this contribution) No, I just want to make a bit of progress. That is why some 4,100 British troops are deployed in so...
David Miliband | 490 c326 (Link to this contribution) I shall give way after I have finished this paragraph. The planning for the safe withdrawal of most ...
Adam Holloway | 490 c326 (Link to this contribution) Does the Foreign Secretary accept that there are lessons to be learned from Iraq and that there are ...
David Miliband | 490 c326-7 (Link to this contribution) I am always wary of the attempt to put Iraq and Afghanistan in the same paragraph, as I believe they...
Jeremy Corbyn | 490 c327 (Link to this contribution) The Foreign Secretary has conceded that an inquiry will take place. Will he assure the House that al...
David Heath | 490 c325 (Link to this contribution) Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
David Miliband | 490 c324-5 (Link to this contribution) After I make some progress I shall be happy to bring in further hon. Members. The UK has a strategi...
Malcolm Rifkind | 490 c324 (Link to this contribution) The Foreign Secretary will know that I made no reference to the Labour party conference. I simply sa...
David Miliband | 490 c324 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman puts it in that way. We have been completely cl...
Malcolm Rifkind | 490 c324 (Link to this contribution) The Foreign Secretary said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) that ...
David Miliband | 490 c324 (Link to this contribution) The former Foreign Secretary should know better; the idea that we decided on a troop withdrawal plan...
Mike Hancock | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) I am sure that the whole House shares the Foreign Secretary's admiration for those who have served a...
David Miliband | 490 c323-4 (Link to this contribution) I do not think that any Foreign Secretary should come to this place claiming that he is being as bra...
David Miliband | 490 c325 (Link to this contribution) I shall make some progress and try to bring in the hon. Gentleman a bit later. Thanks to the brave ...
David Miliband | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) No, the hon. Gentleman has not killed that one off, with respect. British troops will remain in Iraq...
David Miliband | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) The Falklands is the obvious example because the—
Tobias Ellwood | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) The Foreign Secretary seems to be living in a parallel world in terms of what is actually happening ...
Edward Leigh | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. So can he give a commitment today that we wil...
James Gray | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) The Foreign Secretary said a moment ago that the precedent is for the inquiry to be established afte...
David Miliband | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) No, it involves more than that. I will give some further detail, and I am sure that my right hon. Fr...
David Miliband | 490 c323 (Link to this contribution) I am afraid that that is just not correct, and I am happy to go through the reasons why it is not co...
David Miliband | 490 c322 (Link to this contribution) I will be very happy to give way in a moment, after I have set out my argument. The Government amen...
David Miliband | 490 c322 (Link to this contribution) No. I will do so in a few moments. In important respects the work of our troops carries dangers, es...
Michael Fabricant | 490 c322 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c321 (Link to this contribution) I must finish my argument, I think. [Interruption.] Well, due to public demand, I shall give way to ...
Gordon Prentice | 490 c321 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c321 (Link to this contribution) Yes, I think there probably is a good case for that. Provided that they are respected for independen...
Gordon Prentice | 490 c321 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Dardenelles. Given the comments made by very senior members o...
Edward Leigh | 490 c322 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
David Miliband | 490 c321-2 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and add:""notes the...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c320-1 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and he has been instrumental in making sure that some of thes...
John Baron | 490 c320 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend also agree that we need an inquiry because since even the Hutton inquiry a...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c320 (Link to this contribution) I agree, and my hon. Friend has expressed that point very well.
Edward Leigh | 490 c320 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend share my sadness at the fact that the reason why we need a full Falklands-...
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c320 (Link to this contribution) I had not intended to give way again as I am trying to get on with my speech, but I shall give way t...
Edward Leigh | 490 c320 (Link to this contribution) Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?
Lord Hague of Richmond | 490 c320 (Link to this contribution) I think that it is important for it to be a Privy Council inquiry because the results of that inquir...
Adam Price | 490 c320 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the need for an inquiry now. Does he agree that i...
Mark Fisher | 490 c365 (Link to this contribution) The Minister knows that I voted against the war and that I want to see an inquiry. Is there not a wa...
Bob Ainsworth | 490 c365-6 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend has put that argument to me privately and he now puts it to me publicly. I do not bel...
Speaker | 490 c366 (Link to this contribution) I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
Lynne Jones | 490 c360-1 (Link to this contribution) I am aware of the time constraint, so I shall be very brief. I spoke in the debate on the inquiry a...
John Barrett | 490 c359-60 (Link to this contribution) One other person who has sadly passed away since the time of the decision to go to war and who would...
Paul Flynn | 490 c358-9 (Link to this contribution) We could not have stopped the war in Iraq, as it was predetermined, but what we could and should hav...
Tobias Ellwood | 490 c355-8 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady's views are now on the record. It was interesting to hear a former Defence Minister s...
Lynne Jones | 490 c355 (Link to this contribution) I never got an answer from the then Prime Minister to my question about why suddenly, in 2003, Sadda...
Tobias Ellwood | 490 c355 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes an important point, because that assertion has now been questioned. Any Prime M...
Adam Holloway | 490 c355 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend think it was reasonable for people in all parts of the House to trust the assert...
Liam Fox | 490 c362-4 (Link to this contribution) Whether to send armed forces into combat is one of the most important and difficult decisions faced ...
Bob Ainsworth | 490 c364-5 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), with whom I often disagree, brought home t...
Gordon Prentice | 490 c352-3 (Link to this contribution) My friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) talked about pressure on the day, way back...
Gordon Prentice | 490 c353-4 (Link to this contribution) As I said, Butler had a narrow remit and what has subsequently come out tells a different story from...
Viscount Hailsham | 490 c353 (Link to this contribution) Has not Lord Butler's report done an important thing, which has enabled the House to set the Prime M...
Jeremy Corbyn | 490 c348 (Link to this contribution) I accept that the issue is when the combat operation is finished; obviously, I hope that it finishes...
Peter Soulsby | 490 c348 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend recall that in his introductory remarks the Foreign Secretary also explicitly di...
Gordon Prentice | 490 c354 (Link to this contribution) I do not have the time, unfortunately. That diplomat told us:""I had read the intelligence on Iraq ...
Tobias Ellwood | 490 c355 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to participate in this important debate. Let me begin with a quotation from page 81...
Ed Davey | 490 c327 (Link to this contribution) The Foreign Secretary mentioned the operations of the British forces in Iraq. Can he say how many pe...
Speaker | 490 c358 (Link to this contribution) Order. I inform hon. Members that the winding-up speeches will commence at 3.40 pm, but in the remai...
Jeremy Corbyn | 490 c348-50 (Link to this contribution) Absolutely. A series of dossiers and bits of information were produced for the benefit of Members of...
David Miliband | 490 c322-3 (Link to this contribution) No. I said I will give way in a few moments, after I have set out my argument. The time to focus on...
Angus Brendan MacNeil | 490 c350-2 (Link to this contribution) I will not detain the House for long. I would like to deal with the issue of why we need an inquiry ...
Subjects
Armed forces Deployment Inquiries Intelligence services Iraq USA Iraq conflict Hussein, Saddam
Link
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