Opposition Day debate on Iraq, called by the Conservatives on 25 March 2009

Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab): My friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) talked about pressure on the day, way back in March 2003. At that time, the Prime Minister was having one-to-one meetings with Labour Members he thought could be persuaded to support him. After the vote, a colleague who had voted for the war said to me in the Tearoom that he thought he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

My friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) invited the Conservatives to show some humility about their role, because without them we would never have gone to war. Their fingerprints are all over the decision. Only six Conservatives voted against the war, whereas 140 Labour Members voted against it, as well as, creditably, the Liberals and the other minor parties. That is where we are. I have read the Conservative motion two or three times. It contains nothing with which I disagree, so I will vote with the Conservatives to support it.

Why do we need an inquiry? The answer is self-evident. The country was comprehensively misled, and we have been misled ever since. “Lessons on Iraq”, the Defence Committee’s report in 2004, stated that the "MoD has failed to provide us with certain documents... and has demonstrated... less co-operation and openness than we have the right to expect as a select committee of the House of Commons.”

The Foreign Affairs Committee stated:

“Powers to send for papers, persons and records are, in practice, unenforceable in relation to the Executive” when the Executive do not want to co-operate. Butler had a narrow remit. The report spoke of the deficiencies of Cabinet Government, saying that Cabinet Ministers were spectators rather than active participants. It was as though Cabinet was a vegetable patch.

Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con): Has not Lord Butler’s report done an important thing, which has enabled the House to set the Prime Minister’s public statements against the private Joint Intelligence Committee information that he received? It is clear that the Prime Minister omitted all the qualifications and provisos in the JIC material in his public statements.

Mr. Prentice: As I said, Butler had a narrow remit and what has subsequently come out tells a different story from what Butler said at the time.

The Hutton inquiry displayed the hidden inner wiring of the British Government, but it failed to take evidence under oath, as my friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) said earlier. When Lord Hutton appeared before the Select Committee on which I served, I asked him why he did not take evidence under oath. The Prime Minister was, famously, called before him. Lord Hutton replied that he did not think it was necessary. I believe that it is, and that the new inquiry needs to take evidence on oath to get to the truth.

There has been a cascade of memoirs. Of course, memories are beginning to fade, but some memoirs have been blocked. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was our man in Baghdad in 2003-04 and served in the United Nations five years previously, right through the run-up to the war in Iraq, has written a book called “The Cost of War”. It has still not been published. When he appeared before the Committee in January 2006, he told us that his memoirs were “in the fridge not the freezer.”

They are in the freezer and should be defrosted. Last week, the Justice Secretary, who is the former Foreign Secretary, told us that the minutes of the critical Cabinet meetings could not be published, although he went on to say that they would be released to any inquiry that was set up.

We need an inquiry. My friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), with all his experience as a former Armed Forces Minister, said that in his travels around the world he did not meet military people who were calling for an inquiry. However, the military top brass are calling for one. Lord Bramhall, no less, said that the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, failed properly to consult the chiefs of staff or his Cabinet colleagues before going to war. It is perfectly proper to have a senior military person on the commission of inquiry, as happened a lifetime and more ago in the inquiry into what happened in the Dardanelles. Lord Craig, former Air Marshal of the RAF, supports an inquiry. He said: “It is very timely to have an inquiry before memories fade.”

Memories do fade, as the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) said. With every passing year, they dim. My friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) has just published a book, “A View from the Foothills”, in which he recounts discussions we had with Tony Blair way back in 2002-03. I remember them, but one starts to forget the expression on a person’s face, the people who spoke and those who chose to stay silent and so on. Those things are all part of the story. General Sir Mike Jackson wants an inquiry now, not after all the soldiers have come back from Iraq.

We need an inquiry to establish the facts. We need to learn from what happened, and, most important, we need to ensure that it does not happen again. We must also rebuild public confidence. My friend the Member for Cannock Chase referred to the Public Administration Committee’s various reports on inquiries. Most recently, it produced a report recommending that Parliament set up its own parliamentary commission of inquiry.

Why do we have to wait on the Executive to act? We are told that Parliament is supreme. Why is it beyond the wit of MPs in all parts of the House who were against the war to come together and table a motion to force the Government to bring about such an inquiry? When Lord Justice Scott held his inquiry into arms for Iraq, which took four years, even he said that if Select Committees had had all the information that he had, “A select committee might have been a better form for the Inquiry to have taken.”

However, as everyone knows, Select Committees have their flaws. The answer is a properly constituted parliamentary commission of inquiry.

It is very important to take evidence on oath. The inquiry should meet in public, but with provision to meet in private if sensitive material needs to be considered. Civil servants and diplomats should be invited to give evidence when they feel they have something relevant to say. We had a diplomat and a civil servant before the Public Administration Committee last week. Brian Jones was our top man for chemical and biological warfare. He told us that before the dossiers were published, he had huge reservations about the claims that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he was the man who should have known. He wrote to the deputy chief director of intelligence to register his misgivings. He thought that there very probably would be no weapons of mass destruction.

We also heard persuasive evidence from a former diplomat who resigned from the Foreign Office over the decision to go to war in Iraq. He was a man who loved his job and wanted to be a diplomat. He said that in the run-up to war “there was such a momentum towards war, such urgency about it, that anyone who put their hand up at that point would have been crushed.”

Mr. MacNeil: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Prentice: I do not have the time, unfortunately. That diplomat told us:

“I had read the intelligence on Iraq for four and a half years, been part of the Joint Intelligence Committee process, had taken part in US/UK bilaterals every quarter for four and a half years, and during that time the assessment of Iraq and the assessment of our intelligence on Iraq was very clear. It was that there was no significant threat from Iraq. From WMD, or from anything else.”

We were comprehensively led up the garden path and we need an inquiry. I do not know why the Government want to divide the House on the issue, because we all want an inquiry. If the question is one of timing, the combat troops will be out of Iraq in a few months’ time. Why can the Government not just break the habit of a lifetime and support what the Conservatives are proposing?