Report of the Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2016-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry, but I do not have the time I shall not go on by adding more to the strictures about the Attorney General—[Hon. Members: "Go on!"]. The Attorney General was obviously giving the right advice. I am sitting alongside someone who was a very tough Attorney General—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve)—who would not give the advice that eager Prime Ministers sometimes want, and neither would Michael Havers or quite a few others I recall being in government with. As has been said, that is what the Attorney General is for. I know Lord Goldsmith and he is perfectly all right. He must have felt so exposed in the end that he gave into the temptation to say, "Well, it’s just about lawful; it is just about satisfactorily proved." I am sorry to have taken a little longer than I intended, but let me conclude with my main point. The big thing that matters—and it matters very much as we are having a change of Government today—is how the Cabinet and Government processes come into the equation. What about accountability to Parliament? It was obvious at the time, obvious if anyone listened to what the Foreign Secretary said publicly, obvious in what half the Labour party said and obvious from listening to officials that Cabinet Government was not working properly in Tony Blair’s Government. He went in for sofa government. Margaret Thatcher got keener and keener on sofa government towards the end of her time, but Tony Blair had taken it to an art form by the time he got into issues such as Iraq. It was the same with Parliament. There was a reluctance to come to Parliament. Both were essentially seen as hurdles to be surmounted. Once you had your policy, how were you going to get it through the Cabinet and how were you going to get it past Parliament My suggestion for the future is that we should all agree that that is not the mindset that people should have. They should set the proposition, and, of course, advocate it to the Cabinet, and then, with the benefit of proper information, they should listen to it being debated and examined by those who have time to do so. Similarly, Parliament should be consulted when it can be, and given proper information. One should not rely on clever timing of the debate and the work of the Whips to get it through and afterwards say that there is a democratic endorsement. I have no time to apply all my strong strictures to the circumstances of the time, but I think that, if read with my arguments in mind, the Chilcot report feeds the impression that I had then, as someone who participated in debates Military action is difficult. There is no point in politicians being lightheartedly irresponsible and saying, "We have got to be involved in every decision." There will be occasions when that is not possible. There will be occasions when someone has just attacked a British interest, and we have to fight back. You can tell the Cabinet and you can tell Parliament afterwards, and any sensible Cabinet and any sensible Parliament will of course endorse it. But this was not an emergency. For two years our allies had told us that they were going to invade Iraq. It had been planned. It had been worked on. It had been discussed. The reason there was not full Cabinet discussion, and the reason there was not timely parliamentary debate, was that someone who did that might not get it by them. We did not start debating the issue until Parliament until February 2003, and the final, key vote took place when the troops were in the field. That put a lot of Conservatives off the idea of voting against it, when they might otherwise have done so. Our boys were about to go into action, the next day—which is what occurred Some of those matters have been addressed. The National Security Council is a hugely beneficial innovation introduced by my right hon. Friend the outgoing Prime Minister, who is probably already the ex-Prime Minister. Now is not the time to debate it, but it still needs to be improved. It has not covered everything, although it is a lot better than it was. As for Cabinet government, I think that my right hon. Friends should ask themselves— if they are still in office under the next Prime Minister—whether they can ensure that adequate time is given to discuss things, and adequate information is given in advance. Cabinet government does not mean moving quickly from item to item; people must have some papers beforehand so that they can consider the issues properly The National Security Council is very valuable, because it contains defence and intelligence people alongside the politicians. I genuinely congratulate the outgoing Prime Minister: some of the best discussions in which I participated took place in the National Security Council, with my total approval. However, although I may be too sensitive, I think that it could be improved sometimes. There are occasions when a fait accompli is brought there and explained to you, and the defence and intelligence people explain why you should agree, and off you go I think it right to look into why we might have avoided what happened in Libya. The whole history of the middle east and north Africa involves our removing fascist dictatorships of the most poisonous kind from country after country, and then being surprised when they have been replaced by a situation that is, in some instances, even worse than the one that we have removed. A continuing answer to that problem needs to be sought, although at present we may have to confront even bigger problems I began by saying that this was the biggest foreign policy disaster of my time. We all have to ask why the institutions of the United Kingdom failed even to develop a hint of that. It was not particularly courageous for the House to vote in favour. Opinion polls showed that 70% of the British public supported the invasion. For the first week or two it was extremely popular. Had we held a referendum, which is now the fashionable way of governing the country—compared with this old-fashioned parliamentary democracy—it would have sailed through with an enormous majority. The danger of following opinion polls is shown by the fact that a year later I could not find a member of the public who had ever met anybody who agreed with the invasion of Iraq, because in the light of better information people suddenly realised it had been a terrible error There are Members sitting here now who were here at that time. I remember the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) organising some of the opposition on the day I spoke in February. We voted against it, and we spoke against it. Needless to say, I have looked at my speech, and I am very sad to say that I think I predicted quite a lot of the consequences and what would happen. We all agree that, "Never again if we can avoid it," but this is a big subject and it is no good reading the report and just saying we should have a look at the intelligence arrangements; we should have a look at other arrangements as well, such as the way our Government are run, the way this Parliament organises itself, and how we get sensible accountability to the House of Commons the next time the Government have to engage in such difficult decisions.