Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
David Anthony Andrew Amess (Conservative, Centre-right): I have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) that the House is at its best when listening to a maiden speech, but I am afraid it went rather downhill after that. He made an absolutely brilliant speech. He commanded the House, and he brought in a great sense of humour. He was set a very high bar, in following a former Prime Minister, but who knows what will happen in the future. I am very jealous that he lives in the wonderful village of Bladon I rise, with pride, to support the motion. It is rather unfortunate that there is bad blood between the Labour party and the SNP—no doubt, if the Liberal Democrats were in the Chamber, there would be bad blood between them and the Conservatives—but I wish to concentrate solely on the lessons to be learned following the Chilcot report There are only 179 of us left who were in the House that fateful night in March 2003. To my utter shame, I did not follow my 15 colleagues in voting against the war, so the one lesson I have learned is not always to accept at face value everything that is said at the Dispatch Box. That is a big lesson I have learned. I pay tribute to all Members, including those from other parties, who were much wiser than I was. I genuinely thought that the weapons of mass destruction were targeted on our country and that they could reach here in 40 minutes. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) had a briefing with 11 colleagues, but I was not privy to that. I regret the way that I voted. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his speech, with which I entirely agree, and my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) on his speech. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) intervened, and I congratulate him on everything he said As we have heard, the Chilcot report took seven years and cost £13 million. It found that military action had been taken before peaceful options had been exhausted; that the reliability of evidence on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction was overstated; that the legal justification was far from satisfactory; that rather than bolstering the UN, the UK helped to undermine it; that UK armed forces were poorly prepared; that warnings about the consequences of removing Saddam were not taken seriously; and that the UK overestimated its ability to influence the US. I would have thought that was pretty damning My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is not in his place, did an excellent job with his inquiry. He put it to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood: "Chilcot actually says, ‘Most decisions on Iraq pre-conflict were taken either bilaterally between Mr Blair and the relevant Secretary of State or in meetings between Mr Blair, Mr Straw, and Mr Hoon, with No. 10 officials and, as appropriate, Mr John Scarlett and Sir Richard Dearlove and Admiral Boyce’." In further questioning, he put it to him: "Yes, but when the Prime Minister sent another letter to the President of the United States, using those now very famous words ‘I will be with you whatever’, he was advised by officials that this position should be shared with other Cabinet colleagues before he sent the letter and he refused to do so." The Cabinet Secretary replied: "I certainly agree with you that private memos from the Prime Minister to the President of the United States setting out…the…position…should have been subject to collective approval" My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe also said that.