06/07/2016

:00:34. > :00:39.Seven years after it was commissioned, the Chilcot Report

:00:40. > :00:44.into the Iraq War is finally published.

:00:45. > :00:46.This is John Chilcot speaking live at the launch of his report

:00:47. > :00:51.He says his report will criticise individuals and institutions,

:00:52. > :00:54.and says he hopes it will answer questions for families of British

:00:55. > :01:02.It was one the most controversial foreign policy decisions

:01:03. > :01:09.179 British lives were lost in the invasion and its aftermath.

:01:10. > :01:13.So what are the lessons of Iraq and what will it mean for British

:01:14. > :01:19.The Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition will make

:01:20. > :01:22.their statements on the Chilcot report after their weekly sparring

:01:23. > :01:25.contest at Prime Ministers' Questions.

:01:26. > :01:34.We'll have all the action and reaction live from midday

:01:35. > :01:37.Yes, it's going to be a busy 90 minutes and to help us digest it

:01:38. > :01:41.all we are joined for the whole programme today by Charlie Falconer.

:01:42. > :01:43.He was, until recently, the Shadow Justice Secretary

:01:44. > :01:45.and in a former life he was Lord Chancellor

:01:46. > :01:48.And we also have the Conservative MP Julian Lewis.

:01:49. > :01:51.He currently chairs the Defence Select Committee.

:01:52. > :01:58.Now, the Chilcot Report is obviously the big story in Westminster today

:01:59. > :02:05.and it's being published more or less as we come on air.

:02:06. > :02:18.Has been under embargo, actually, until 11.30 three.

:02:19. > :02:21.So we are just going to give ourselves a few minutes to digest

:02:22. > :02:23.the headline findings of the report and get some reaction.

:02:24. > :02:27.But first, Jo has been keeping an eye on the other big running story

:02:28. > :02:28.in Westminster - the Conservative leadership election.

:02:29. > :02:30.So there are now just three contenders for

:02:31. > :02:34.Liam Fox came last in yesterday's ballot amongst MPs, with 16 votes

:02:35. > :02:38.Stephen Crabb, who came fourth with 34 votes,

:02:39. > :02:45.Both contenders threw their weight behind Theresa May, who was already

:02:46. > :02:50.way out in front with 165 supporters, half of the total votes.

:02:51. > :02:54.So it looks like Theresa May will be one of the top two to face

:02:55. > :02:59.the Conservative membership, but who could be her biggest threat?

:03:00. > :03:03.The Daily Politics has been given exclusive access to a new Survation

:03:04. > :03:07.poll of Conservative councillors showing that whilst Theresa May

:03:08. > :03:10.is way out in front with 46%, Andrea Leadsom has the support

:03:11. > :03:12.of nearly 22% of councillors, compared to Micheal Gove,

:03:13. > :03:30.Julian Lewis, it is Theresa May's to lose? Yes, but it is a very

:03:31. > :03:34.different electorate at the final stage. I must declare my interest, I

:03:35. > :03:39.am a supporter of Andrea's. I believe if she can get to the final

:03:40. > :03:44.stage, she will impress significantly and may well win. Do

:03:45. > :03:48.you agree with Stephen Crabb, who has dropped out, that with Theresa

:03:49. > :03:53.May so far ahead there needs to be a new leader quickly? No, not

:03:54. > :03:58.particularly. We constructed our electoral system with these factors

:03:59. > :04:01.in mind. It was decided it was for the members of Parliament to whittle

:04:02. > :04:04.it down to the last two and for the membership of the party to make the

:04:05. > :04:08.final decision. That should be done when the membership of the party has

:04:09. > :04:13.had a chance to listen to the two remaining candidates at a series of

:04:14. > :04:17.hustings around the country. Do you appreciate the argument that these

:04:18. > :04:20.are very uncertain times and there is the potential for turbulence,

:04:21. > :04:24.politically, economically, it may not happen, but there is that

:04:25. > :04:29.potential and a new Prime Minister is needed quickly? Not if it is

:04:30. > :04:33.going to result in a foreshortening of the democratic process. What is

:04:34. > :04:36.more important than settling even short-term turbulence is making the

:04:37. > :04:42.right decision in a democratic manner. I think the contest, which

:04:43. > :04:49.is set to go through to September, is perfectly adequate in terms of a

:04:50. > :04:52.timeline to be able to adapt the two remaining candidates and make the

:04:53. > :04:57.right decision. You are supporting Andrea Leadsom, what you make of Ken

:04:58. > :05:01.Clarke, caught on camera yesterday, he probably would say he would say

:05:02. > :05:06.it anyway, he said he didn't believe Andrea Leadsom wanted to leave the

:05:07. > :05:10.European Union? It interesting, he is someone who never wanted to leave

:05:11. > :05:16.the European Union so he would have an interest in dissing the prospects

:05:17. > :05:22.of somebody who does. Margaret Thatcher herself, once upon a time,

:05:23. > :05:25.wore a jumper festooned with European Union country flags and,

:05:26. > :05:31.yet, subsequently toughened her line. The point that made me realise

:05:32. > :05:35.that Andrea was the candidate for me, while I realised all along she

:05:36. > :05:39.had poor is, expertise and versatility, what I didn't know is

:05:40. > :05:43.whether she had political courage. By joining the Brexit campaign at a

:05:44. > :05:48.time when it didn't look good, she showed she had political courage.

:05:49. > :05:53.Julian appears to be suggesting that Ken Clarke's off-again intervention

:05:54. > :05:57.was a calculated attempt to undo Andrea Leadsom. One thing I can say

:05:58. > :06:01.about Ken Clarke, it would not have been calculate it, it would have

:06:02. > :06:06.been spontaneous. Thank you for announcing that intervention. You

:06:07. > :06:09.say somebody like Margaret Thatcher changed her mind when it came to her

:06:10. > :06:15.enthusiasm for the European Union, and that is true. On this programme,

:06:16. > :06:19.in 2013, Andrea Leadsom argued leaving the EU would be a disaster

:06:20. > :06:24.for the economy. What makes you so sure that she is the right person to

:06:25. > :06:28.lead the UK out? I'll tell you what makes me so sure, the fact is, at

:06:29. > :06:34.the time that she made those comments, she still believed, and

:06:35. > :06:40.was driving, to see if a deal could be reached that could make it

:06:41. > :06:45.permissible and acceptable to remain within the European Union. A

:06:46. > :06:49.disaster for the economy? She did her best to see whether the European

:06:50. > :06:53.Union was reform at all. She came to the conclusion, which a lot of us

:06:54. > :06:57.have had, who had been more actively involved for a longer period, that

:06:58. > :07:00.it wasn't and she nailed her colours firmly to the mast. She impressed

:07:01. > :07:08.enough people to put her in the commanding position she is in. In

:07:09. > :07:11.the last few minutes, John Chilcot has finally published his 12 volume

:07:12. > :07:19.report of his inquiry into the Iraq war and its aftermath. It is 2.6

:07:20. > :07:20.million words. Now, a select group of journalists

:07:21. > :07:23.has been in a so-called lock-in since 8 o'clock this morning looking

:07:24. > :07:27.at the report and we can now report Page 1 of the inquiry report states,

:07:28. > :07:32."The UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options

:07:33. > :07:36.for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not

:07:37. > :08:07.a last resort." The inquiry also published a memo

:08:08. > :08:10.between Tony Blair and George Bush, That was just about nine months

:08:11. > :08:46.before the invasion. Well, Sir John Chilcot

:08:47. > :08:47.has just finished making a statement - here's

:08:48. > :09:00.a flavour of what he had to say. It is now clear that policy on Iraq

:09:01. > :09:05.was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They

:09:06. > :09:14.were not challenged and they should have been. The findings on Iraq's

:09:15. > :09:20.WMD capabilities, set out in the report of the Iraq Survey Group in

:09:21. > :09:23.October 2004 were significant, but they did not support preinvasion

:09:24. > :09:29.statements by the UK Government which had focused on Iraq's current

:09:30. > :09:37.capabilities. Mr Blair and Mr Straw had described them as vast stocks,

:09:38. > :09:41.and an urgent and growing threat. In response to those findings, Mr Blair

:09:42. > :09:46.told the House of Commons that, although Iraq might not have had

:09:47. > :09:52.stockpiles of actually deployable weapons, Saddam Hussein retained the

:09:53. > :09:57.intent and the capability, and was in breach of United Nations

:09:58. > :10:04.obligations. That was not, however, the explanation for military action

:10:05. > :10:07.he had given before the conflict. John Chilcot, a few seconds ago.

:10:08. > :10:12.Let's get initial reactions from both of you. Charles Faulkner, Tony

:10:13. > :10:19.Blair's statements on the threat posed by WMDs were not justified. Mr

:10:20. > :10:24.Blair took Britain to war before the peaceful options had been exhausted.

:10:25. > :10:28.That's pretty damning? Era yes, and it is a very serious criticism. The

:10:29. > :10:34.first one, namely that he, in effect, overstated the extent of the

:10:35. > :10:38.risk, this is about the intelligence assessments. As far as the

:10:39. > :10:42.intelligence bodies in the world were concerned, the Western world,

:10:43. > :10:49.they all thought that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction.

:10:50. > :10:52.With lots of caveats. What Mr Blair said, was not corrected by the

:10:53. > :10:55.agencies, though they knew differently, he said at the time

:10:56. > :11:00.that the intelligence was extensive, detailed and authoritative. We now

:11:01. > :11:05.know from the Butler report, not one of these three words was true.

:11:06. > :11:09.Scrappy and patchy were the words used. It was also very clear that

:11:10. > :11:15.they believed they did have weapons of mass destruction. The dossier you

:11:16. > :11:21.are referring to, I don't know if it is the dossier or the statement in

:11:22. > :11:24.Parliament, it was authored by the intelligence services. Of course,

:11:25. > :11:28.there might have been imprisoned in a way they shouldn't have been. What

:11:29. > :11:32.about the broader point that we went to war, we were taken to war before

:11:33. > :11:38.the peaceful options had been exhausted? People told us that at

:11:39. > :11:44.the time? And a choice had to be made about whether or not, and this

:11:45. > :11:50.is March 2003, you gave Saddam yet a further opportunity to comply with

:11:51. > :11:53.obligations to make disclosure about what his weapons of mass destruction

:11:54. > :11:57.were, and a judgment had to be made. A judgment was made by the USA and

:11:58. > :12:02.the UK that he should not be given more time. That is in the context of

:12:03. > :12:08.somebody that had been trying to stall the weapons inspectors since

:12:09. > :12:14.1991. All right. Let me come to you in a minute. We will hear first from

:12:15. > :12:17.Norman, our political correspondent. Let's go straight to him in

:12:18. > :12:22.Westminster. He has been following this. Norman, you are outside the

:12:23. > :12:26.QE2, where the report is being unveiled. There are demonstrations

:12:27. > :12:33.going on. What are the immediate take aways from this? Well, it seems

:12:34. > :12:36.to me that this report is much, much more damning than anyone had

:12:37. > :12:42.suspected. It is basically a din and see a not pretty much every aspect

:12:43. > :12:47.of the war, from the reasons to go to war, to the threat posed by

:12:48. > :12:50.Saddam Hussein. The claims he had weapons of mass destruction, the

:12:51. > :12:56.intelligence provided by the intelligence services, the legal

:12:57. > :13:00.case for war, the equipment the troops were sent to fight with, the

:13:01. > :13:03.lack of planning any aftermath. The only people that emerge with any

:13:04. > :13:07.credit our soldiers and civilians that were deployed in Iraq. What

:13:08. > :13:12.strikes me most about the report, the summary, is the figure towering

:13:13. > :13:17.over it who runs through the whole report, Tony Blair. What becomes

:13:18. > :13:21.clear is that he had become personally convinced that Saddam

:13:22. > :13:27.Hussein had to go months and months, and months, before the war, before

:13:28. > :13:31.telling Cabinet colleagues, before telling the country. He was

:13:32. > :13:38.personally signed up to getting rid of Saddam Hussein. What changed his

:13:39. > :13:41.mind seems to have been 9/11. A few months after that, in December, he

:13:42. > :13:46.is writing to President Bush, already discussing regime change in

:13:47. > :13:49.Iraq, albeit floating the idea that it could be through an uprising in

:13:50. > :13:55.Iraq which the British and Americans would support militarily. There is

:13:56. > :14:00.then that credible meeting in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002,

:14:01. > :14:04.where the two men pretty much firmer the military option. In July, and

:14:05. > :14:08.the known to the Cabinet for anyone else, Tony Blair writes to President

:14:09. > :14:16.Bush saying, I will be with you, whatever. He cites what has happened

:14:17. > :14:20.in Kosovo, Afghanistan and the last Gulf War. That seems to me to be the

:14:21. > :14:24.moment when he signalled that he is prepared to remove Saddam Hussein by

:14:25. > :14:29.British military intervention. We move forward to January 2003, three

:14:30. > :14:34.months before the outbreak of war. Tony Blair, again right into

:14:35. > :14:40.President Bush, saying the military option looks the most likely and

:14:41. > :14:46.commits to three British divisions being deployed in southern Iraq. As

:14:47. > :14:53.I say, the central story, I think, is Tony Blair parishing, deriving

:14:54. > :14:58.this whole drift to war. -- pushing. It accelerates as the days, weeks

:14:59. > :15:00.and months ago one. His cabinet, by and large, out of the loop or mere

:15:01. > :15:09.spectators. Thank you very much a superb summary

:15:10. > :15:13.the initial report or Doppler may get a reaction from you. I haven't

:15:14. > :15:18.yet had the chance to hear the full conclusions but I must say, it

:15:19. > :15:21.doesn't look as if that -- does look as if there was a preordained

:15:22. > :15:25.agenda. I must declare interest, I was a shallow defenceman struck the

:15:26. > :15:30.time and I strongly supported removing Saddam Hussein but what I

:15:31. > :15:36.did not support was the use of the intelligence services as a shelter

:15:37. > :15:44.behind which the government was secretly trying to mitigate events,

:15:45. > :15:46.-- manipulate events, and that soon became a situation where the joint

:15:47. > :15:50.intelligence committee was nothing more than a political football. The

:15:51. > :15:54.position ought to be that the secret agencies do their business, advice

:15:55. > :15:57.the government and the government then makes the decision. The

:15:58. > :16:01.government should not be pulling them into the limelight and saying,

:16:02. > :16:04."If you don't believe us you'd better believe them," particularly

:16:05. > :16:11.when it had Alastair Campbell trying to get them to rewrite their own

:16:12. > :16:12.conclusions took we are going to continue discussing this in a moment

:16:13. > :16:15.but you have some other guests. Joining me now from College

:16:16. > :16:17.Green is Mark Seddon - he was on Labour's National

:16:18. > :16:20.Executive at the time of the Iraq War and fought internal

:16:21. > :16:22.battles with Tony Blair - he presented his evidence

:16:23. > :16:24.to the Chilcot Inquiry. And Dr Alan Mendoza

:16:25. > :16:33.from the Henry Jackson Society. Welcome to both of you. Mark Seddon,

:16:34. > :16:36.first of all, it's a damning report, certainly when you look at it

:16:37. > :16:40.initially in every aspect of the war. Does all the blame for

:16:41. > :16:45.Britain's involvement in Iraq now rests on the shoulders of Tony

:16:46. > :16:48.Blair? No, it doesn't did good is hugely damning report and you do

:16:49. > :16:52.wonder because the process of challenging this whole idea of there

:16:53. > :16:56.being weapons of mass destruction began about a year ago and you have

:16:57. > :17:01.to ask yourself the question, if it's possible for a journalist such

:17:02. > :17:04.as myself or other people to interview the former head of the UN

:17:05. > :17:06.weapons inspector Scott Ritter and him to tell us that there were no

:17:07. > :17:10.likely weapons of mass destruction because they've done their job, that

:17:11. > :17:19.would then ring alarm bells. There were three resolutions and at the

:17:20. > :17:23.Labour Party conference, essentially we were trying to establish that no

:17:24. > :17:27.action should be taken by the British Government without the full

:17:28. > :17:31.support of the noted nations. I had to be security Council backing. Each

:17:32. > :17:39.one of those was shot down and it has to be said that the late Robin

:17:40. > :17:42.Cook and the former president of the UN assembly helped me write them. So

:17:43. > :17:48.it does make you wonder what on earth was going on and I'm afraid

:17:49. > :17:54.that the inquiry does tell us what was going on, which was essentially

:17:55. > :17:58.that there was a drive for regime change. That's what it was. Except

:17:59. > :18:02.when you look at the declassified memo from Tony Blair to George Bush,

:18:03. > :18:06.it also shows that Tony Blair was convinced that Saddam Hussein was a

:18:07. > :18:09.potential threat and Batty had weapons of mass destruction and was

:18:10. > :18:13.prepared to use them. So does that not dispel the argument that Tony

:18:14. > :18:18.Blair went ahead with his intentions knowing there were no weapons of

:18:19. > :18:21.mass destruction? Hans Blix, if you recall, who was somebody else who

:18:22. > :18:25.was underlined along with the Security Council, was arguing for

:18:26. > :18:28.more time. The previous head of the UN is weapons inspectors had said

:18:29. > :18:33.that they had done the job. There was real doubt as to what the Iraqis

:18:34. > :18:37.might have if anything, really, so if that was the pretext it was an

:18:38. > :18:43.incorrect pretext and I think that has come through in this report in a

:18:44. > :18:48.very polite way. It's a very, very powerful report it You say it is

:18:49. > :18:52.polite because some of the language that is used actually doesn't pin,

:18:53. > :18:56.if you like, the Lehman Tony Blair in quite the way some his critics

:18:57. > :19:01.would like to see. Do you think Tony Blair now was wrong to go to war,

:19:02. > :19:06.Alan Mendoza? Ideye Mickey was wrong to go to war. I think what is clear

:19:07. > :19:12.is that he exaggerated things. -- I don't think he was wrong to go to

:19:13. > :19:15.war. Everyone knew that Saddam was a threat. Everyone knew, including his

:19:16. > :19:19.own generals, it seems, that he had a programme of some kind of weapons

:19:20. > :19:22.of mass to structured, everyone knew he was a barbaric leader. It wasn't

:19:23. > :19:25.wrong to go to war and try and remove such a person who did

:19:26. > :19:29.threaten our security, but it is clear the report has laid bare some

:19:30. > :19:33.of the contradictions and problems of foreign policy decision-making of

:19:34. > :19:38.the time and that is what we should be focusing on, looking at how we

:19:39. > :19:42.can better improve our foreign policy-making process in the future

:19:43. > :19:44.so that if there is a similar conflict that looks like coming, we

:19:45. > :19:48.do properly analyse data and make sure we make an informed decision,

:19:49. > :19:53.rather than one which takes bits and pieces and concoct them into a

:19:54. > :19:58.theory. But Alan Mendoza, there is the line that says, "I will be with

:19:59. > :20:01.you whatever," Tony Blair to George Bush, which is the charge that was

:20:02. > :20:06.put to the then Prime Minister, that he had already decided to go to war,

:20:07. > :20:10.he had already decided to support the Americans in going into Iraq

:20:11. > :20:15.without the UN security resolution and without, at that time, the

:20:16. > :20:18.say-so of the House of Commons. I don't think anyone would think in

:20:19. > :20:23.their right mind that Saddam Hussein would ever comply with the UN. He

:20:24. > :20:27.hadn't done so since 1991. At some point, as he states, a political

:20:28. > :20:31.decision had to be made. It is clear that Tony Blair came to that early,

:20:32. > :20:35.he decided early to do that. It doesn't mean that in 2003 or 2004 he

:20:36. > :20:40.wouldn't have made the same decision. Mach seven, what about the

:20:41. > :20:44.calls from some parts of the Labour Party and certainly Jeremy Corbyn,

:20:45. > :20:50.the Labour leader, who was reported to want to accuse Tony Blair of

:20:51. > :20:52.being a war criminal. Is that they're? Gove it is the

:20:53. > :20:55.International Criminal Court to investigate that. I think the damage

:20:56. > :21:00.has been done and needs to be repaired to the United Nations, to

:21:01. > :21:07.the Security Council, to Kofi Anand. I think if you asking me my own

:21:08. > :21:14.personal view that Tony Blair has to reflect very long and hard on this

:21:15. > :21:19.report and I hope that he can see that he was wrong to push for

:21:20. > :21:23.unilateral military action without the support of the United Nations

:21:24. > :21:30.and I hope that he will apologise to all of those people who lost sons

:21:31. > :21:34.and daughters, both from Britain and Iraq, and I hope, more importantly

:21:35. > :21:38.than Tony Blair, that this is never allowed to happen again. We do not

:21:39. > :21:43.have unilateral military action taken by this country. Thank you

:21:44. > :21:49.both very much. Charlie Faulkner, Chilcot says we

:21:50. > :21:54.rushed into war prematurely, we haven't exhausted all the options.

:21:55. > :21:59.Casts fresh doubt on the legality of our actions, it makes clear the

:22:00. > :22:04.intelligence was deeply flawed and that the aftermath of it all was a

:22:05. > :22:08.disaster. Where is the good news in this? I haven't read the report and

:22:09. > :22:13.we visit the need to learn the lessons of it. In a way, though,

:22:14. > :22:18.looking at it from the point of view of what was going on at the time the

:22:19. > :22:21.decision was made, as I said earlier wrong, the dilemma for the

:22:22. > :22:28.government was what to do about Saddam Hussein and the extent to

:22:29. > :22:32.which he posed a threat to the region and may be wider. These are

:22:33. > :22:37.difficult decisions. The threat to the region came subsequently, didn't

:22:38. > :22:42.it? The region ended up in chaos. We now know that Saddam was not a

:22:43. > :22:46.threat. He had been a threat to the region. We tabby Iran war, the

:22:47. > :22:52.Kuwait intervention, but by that time he wasn't. The whole threat to

:22:53. > :22:56.the region came after our invasion. At that time, in 2003, what it

:22:57. > :23:01.appeared, and this was the view that was widely held, was that he was

:23:02. > :23:05.trying to avoid having revealed what the extent of his weapons of mass

:23:06. > :23:09.destruction were. Subsequently, as you rightly say, there were no

:23:10. > :23:12.stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Wasn't just hindsight

:23:13. > :23:15.it topped the French at the time told us not to go down this road,

:23:16. > :23:18.they warned us that this was a dangerous thing, that things were

:23:19. > :23:22.not as clear-cut as the Blair government was making out. Hans

:23:23. > :23:26.Blix, the weapons inspector, he said you needed more time, he haven't

:23:27. > :23:32.found anything yet. You don't need hindsight to have been right at the

:23:33. > :23:36.time. People were right and the government was wrong. You have to

:23:37. > :23:41.make a judgment in March 2003. That was the dilemma that the government

:23:42. > :23:48.faced. The UN had passed countless resolutions between 1991 up to and

:23:49. > :23:53.including 1441 in November 2002, all posited on the basis that he had

:23:54. > :23:58.weapons of mass destruction. Why would he be evasive? Why had he

:23:59. > :24:01.thrown out the weapons inspectors in 1998? Why was it that he would not

:24:02. > :24:04.provide full cooperation? Because he was terrified that his own people

:24:05. > :24:09.might rise up against him if he didn't have these weapons of mass

:24:10. > :24:16.destruction. It was an act, we know that now. It was all an act and he

:24:17. > :24:20.fooled us. Here is an issue, with your defence hat on. You can have

:24:21. > :24:23.arguments about the policy of the time, about the aftermath and so on

:24:24. > :24:28.but I think a lot of people watching at home, when they get to see more

:24:29. > :24:32.of this Chilcot Report, will come to this, which is that even though the

:24:33. > :24:37.situation in Iraq was far from resolved by 2006, indeed things were

:24:38. > :24:44.going from bad to worse in Basra, the bit that we were occupying, we

:24:45. > :24:48.opened a second front in Afghanistan and began to ramp above forces there

:24:49. > :24:54.and the Chilcot Report is quite clear, we did not provide our forces

:24:55. > :24:58.with the resources to fight on two fronts. Indeed, and the problem that

:24:59. > :25:04.we have is that in peace time we never wish to invest as much in

:25:05. > :25:08.defence as we should so that when a conflict breaks out, we never have

:25:09. > :25:12.adequate resources and we only develop those resources as the

:25:13. > :25:17.conflict goes on. But can I just put two point of your consideration? The

:25:18. > :25:21.thing that meant that it was more dangerous than normal to adopt a

:25:22. > :25:25.policy of containment with Saddam Hussein, which would normally be the

:25:26. > :25:33.correct policy, was the appearance on the scene of Al-Qaeda in such a

:25:34. > :25:40.terrible way in 2001 because the fear was that if, for any reason,

:25:41. > :25:43.stocks of mass destruction weapons, by which I mean anthrax, not

:25:44. > :25:50.lower-level weapons, weapons that could kill, hundreds of thousands of

:25:51. > :25:55.people by deployment of relatively small quantities of these weapons,

:25:56. > :25:58.if for any reason a dictator chose to supply those to the terrorists,

:25:59. > :26:04.you couldn't use the deterrent option. Syria could have done the

:26:05. > :26:08.same, we didn't invade Syria. Al-Qaeda was almost nowhere to be

:26:09. > :26:12.seen in Iraq. Out only when it appeared, after we'd invaded, then

:26:13. > :26:20.it was everywhere. Indeed, and that leads me to second point I wanted to

:26:21. > :26:25.make. It was perfectly possible for a dictator who is faced with an

:26:26. > :26:31.enemy to supply the enemies of his enemies with deadly weapons that

:26:32. > :26:36.they would unhesitatingly use. But on the second point, in relation to

:26:37. > :26:41.what happened in Syria, was that those of us who had learned the

:26:42. > :26:47.lessons of Iraq, and I was one, and who voted not to allow Assad to be

:26:48. > :26:53.brought down, realised that the main problem was that there was optimism

:26:54. > :26:57.that if you pulled down these dictators, democracy would emerge,

:26:58. > :27:00.whereas in reality what Iraq showed was that you either have a

:27:01. > :27:05.repressive dictatorship or you have bloody Civil War of 1000 years'

:27:06. > :27:09.standing between the different branches of Islam and that is the

:27:10. > :27:12.real lesson that we applied to Syria. Many people said that at the

:27:13. > :27:15.time and it turns out now, it's not quite clear that the Bush

:27:16. > :27:19.administration even knew the difference between Sunni and Shia.

:27:20. > :27:23.They knew nothing of the history of Iraq at all. The British may have

:27:24. > :27:26.known a bit more but it looks like the Americans knew nothing and they

:27:27. > :27:30.have prepared almost nothing for the aftermath, which is probably the

:27:31. > :27:34.biggest unforgivable thing, because they didn't attack us, we attacked

:27:35. > :27:38.them supposedly to make a better society, and we had no plans to do

:27:39. > :27:42.so and Mr Blair did not insist that the Americans had that. These are

:27:43. > :27:46.things that are clear and the Chilcot Report. Laura Coombs BOE,

:27:47. > :27:51.our political editor, has joined us. You were in the lock in. That is

:27:52. > :27:55.just the Executive summary, which is a big enough document on its own. Is

:27:56. > :27:59.it clear to you yet, Laura, what the political fallout is going to be

:28:00. > :28:03.from this? It seems now to be a pretty damning report. It is under

:28:04. > :28:07.people were worried that there would be a whitewash, if there were any

:28:08. > :28:11.suggestions of that, it is not. Impolite technicolour, this is a

:28:12. > :28:14.very, very damning verdict on exact what happened. In terms of the

:28:15. > :28:18.political consequences, there is one very important thing, most of the

:28:19. > :28:22.main actors criticised in here, and there are many of them, have gone on

:28:23. > :28:26.to pastures new. They are not people who are in the political front line

:28:27. > :28:30.any more, they have moved on, but the question of Tony Blair's

:28:31. > :28:34.reputation will, to some extent, rest on this, and in the last few

:28:35. > :28:38.minutes he has released a statement looking for the positives, I suppose

:28:39. > :28:41.in this, saying that this should lay to rest any idea that there was

:28:42. > :28:45.deceit or there was bad faith or it was deception in any way and he

:28:46. > :28:49.will, I'm sure, through the day, certainly hang on to a very clear

:28:50. > :28:52.conclusion in there, but there was not evidence that Number Ten do

:28:53. > :28:58.liberally manufactured evidence. Of course that has been one of the most

:28:59. > :29:01.controversial claims all along. -- deliberately manufactured evidence.

:29:02. > :29:04.This is a remarkable document because this is not fractions of

:29:05. > :29:07.what happened, this is not scraps. This is probably the most

:29:08. > :29:11.comprehensive analysis of a conflict in modern times and I think for any

:29:12. > :29:16.politician who is thinking about military action in the next few

:29:17. > :29:20.decades, they'll think of this because here we are, almost all of

:29:21. > :29:23.the details about the decision-making, all of the details

:29:24. > :29:29.of so many of the mistakes, out in public view. It is felt like it is a

:29:30. > :29:33.long time coming but in historical terms, this is an astonishingly

:29:34. > :29:38.rapid and damning conclusion of what politicians who are not on the front

:29:39. > :29:43.line, but they are still around, did wrong. We are going to go over to

:29:44. > :29:46.PMQs in a minute but lets to see if we have time. On the legality of the

:29:47. > :29:51.issue, Chilcot talks about the circumstances being wrong. I'm not

:29:52. > :29:54.quite clear, perhaps you are. He's not saying, though, it's illegal. He

:29:55. > :29:58.pulls his punch or doesn't come to that conclusion. It is very

:29:59. > :30:02.important that our viewers to understand this. Chilcot was not

:30:03. > :30:08.constituted to give illegal verdict. It was not a court, they were not a

:30:09. > :30:13.jury. -- a legal verdict. However, my reading of what he says is that

:30:14. > :30:15.he goes almost as far as he could in suggesting that there may be caused

:30:16. > :30:20.to show that the decision was potentially... Let's go straight

:30:21. > :30:37.over to the House of Commons for PMQs.

:30:38. > :30:47.Chloe Smith. Mr Speaker, I am a Conservative because I believe it is

:30:48. > :30:53.not where you are coming from, it is where you are going to. Does my

:30:54. > :30:55.right honourable friend agree? Does my right honourable friend agree

:30:56. > :31:06.that the opportunities to succeed no matter what your background is what

:31:07. > :31:10.we want for Britain? I absolutely agree, making sure all citizens have

:31:11. > :31:13.life chances to make the most of their talents should be the driving

:31:14. > :31:18.mission for the rest of this Parliament. Yesterday we were

:31:19. > :31:22.talking about boosting national citizens service, which I think will

:31:23. > :31:24.play a key role in giving young people the confidence and life

:31:25. > :31:33.skills to make the most of the talents they have. I think today it

:31:34. > :31:37.would be appropriate if we pause for a moment to think of those people

:31:38. > :31:43.who lost their lives in the bombings in Baghdad in recent days. The

:31:44. > :31:48.people that have suffered and their families, the end of Ramadan, it

:31:49. > :31:53.must be a terrible experience for them and we should send our

:31:54. > :31:59.sympathies and solidarity. I join the Prime Minister in wishing Wales

:32:00. > :32:06.well. I'll be cheering for them along with everybody else. That's

:32:07. > :32:19.quiet, isn't it? There is life after all! 30 years ago, Mr Speaker, the

:32:20. > :32:25.Shire Brooke colliery employed thousands of workers in skilled,

:32:26. > :32:31.well played, unionised jobs, digging coal. Today, thousands of people

:32:32. > :32:39.work on the same site. The vast majority are an zero hours

:32:40. > :32:47.contracts, no union representation, the minimum wage is not even paid.

:32:48. > :32:54.Doesn't it sum up Britain? Let me join the honourable gentleman in

:32:55. > :32:59.giving my thoughts to those killed in these terrible terrorist attacks.

:33:00. > :33:03.On the issue of what has happened in our coalfield communities, to see

:33:04. > :33:06.new jobs and new investment come, we have made sure that there is not

:33:07. > :33:14.only a minimum wage, but now a national Living Wage. Yes, he talks

:33:15. > :33:24.about one colliery. I recently visited the site of the Grimethorpe

:33:25. > :33:27.colliery, there is a business there, Asos, employing 5000 people. We are

:33:28. > :33:30.never going to succeed as a country if we try to hold onto jobs in

:33:31. > :33:36.industries that have become uncompetitive. We have to hold onto

:33:37. > :33:40.jobs of the future. The problem is, if you are on a zero hours

:33:41. > :33:45.contracts, the minimum wage does not add up to a living wage. He must

:33:46. > :33:50.understand that. Can I take him to the Lindsey oil refinery? In 2009,

:33:51. > :33:54.hundreds of oil workers worked out on strike because agency workers

:33:55. > :33:59.from Italy and Portugal were brought in on lower wages to do the same

:34:00. > :34:08.job. Just down the road in Boston, low pay is endemic. The average

:34:09. > :34:16.hourly wage across the whole country is ?13.33. An East Midlands, ?12. In

:34:17. > :34:20.Boston, it is ?9. Isn't it time the government intervened to step up for

:34:21. > :34:24.those communities that feel they have been left behind in modern

:34:25. > :34:27.Britain? We have intervened with a national Living Wage, we have

:34:28. > :34:31.intervened with more fines against companies that don't pay the minimum

:34:32. > :34:35.wage. We have intervened, for the first time, something that Labour

:34:36. > :34:38.never did, naming and shaming companies involved. Those

:34:39. > :34:44.interventions help and can make a difference. The real intervention

:34:45. > :34:50.that you need is an economy that is growing and encouraging investment.

:34:51. > :34:55.What we want are the industry the future. Record numbers are aware,

:34:56. > :35:00.and the British economy has been one of the strongest in the G7. Mr

:35:01. > :35:07.Speaker, this Government promised it would rebalance our economy. It

:35:08. > :35:09.promised a Northern Powerhouse. Yet half of 1% of infrastructure

:35:10. > :35:15.investment is going to the north-east. London is getting 44

:35:16. > :35:19.times more than that. Does he not think it is time to have a real

:35:20. > :35:25.rebalancing of our economy and invest in those areas that are

:35:26. > :35:29.losing out so badly? I think he is talking down the performance of

:35:30. > :35:32.parts of our economy that are doing well. If you look at the

:35:33. > :35:37.fastest-growing part of our economy, it has been the north-west, not the

:35:38. > :35:40.south-east. If you want to see where exports are growing faster, it is

:35:41. > :35:44.the north-east and not London. There is a huge amount of work to do to

:35:45. > :35:50.make sure we feel that North-South divide. For the first time, we have

:35:51. > :35:52.a Government with a proper strategy, investing in infrastructure,

:35:53. > :35:55.training and skills that will make a difference. For years, regional

:35:56. > :35:59.policy was just trying to distribute a few government jobs outside

:36:00. > :36:05.London. Now we have a strategy about skills, training and about growth

:36:06. > :36:08.and delivery. The idea of this redistribution is a very

:36:09. > :36:13.interesting. The investment in London is more than the total of

:36:14. > :36:19.every other English region combined. Does he not think these issues

:36:20. > :36:23.should be addressed? In March, the government investment was cut in

:36:24. > :36:26.order to meet its fiscal rules. How does the Prime Minister think the

:36:27. > :36:31.economy can be rebalanced when investment is cut and what little

:36:32. > :36:36.investment remains reinforces the regional imbalances in this country?

:36:37. > :36:40.Well, first of all, again, he is talking down the North in the

:36:41. > :36:44.questions he asks. The unemployment rate in the north-west is lower than

:36:45. > :36:48.the unemployment rate London. I think, actually, his figures are

:36:49. > :36:53.wrong. In terms of investment, yes, of course, we need to have the

:36:54. > :36:57.Government investment. We got it in HS2, in the railways, the biggest

:36:58. > :37:01.investment programme since Victorian times, the biggest investment in our

:37:02. > :37:05.roads since the 1970s. You can only invest if you have a strong and

:37:06. > :37:09.growing economy. We know what Labour's recipe is, more borrowing,

:37:10. > :37:15.more spending, more debt, trashing the economy, which is what they did

:37:16. > :37:19.when in office and that is when investment collapses. The Chancellor

:37:20. > :37:22.finally did this week what the Shadow Chancellor asked him to do in

:37:23. > :37:26.the Autumn Statement and what I asked the Prime Minister to do last

:37:27. > :37:30.week, abandoned a key part of the fiscal rule. We now know the deficit

:37:31. > :37:37.was supposed to vanish by 2015, and it will not even be gone by 2020.

:37:38. > :37:40.Isn't it time to admit that austerity is a failure and the way

:37:41. > :37:47.forward is to invest in infrastructure, invest in growth and

:37:48. > :37:50.invest in jobs? What he says is not the case. The rules we set out

:37:51. > :37:54.always have flexibility in case growth didn't turn out the way...

:37:55. > :37:57.Well, the point I would make to him, I would take his advice more

:37:58. > :38:02.seriously if I could think of a single spending reduction that he

:38:03. > :38:07.had supported at any time in the last six years. The fact is, this

:38:08. > :38:10.Government and the last one, the Coalition Government, had to take

:38:11. > :38:14.difficult decisions to get our deficit under control. It's gone

:38:15. > :38:19.from 11% of GDP that we inherited, the biggest in the entire world,

:38:20. > :38:22.almost, to under 3% this year, because of difficult decisions. If

:38:23. > :38:26.he can tell me one of those decisions he has supported, I would

:38:27. > :38:35.be interested to hear it. Mr Speaker, concerns about the fiscal

:38:36. > :38:37.rule investment are obviously spreading on his own ventures. The

:38:38. > :38:39.Work and Pensions Secretary and Business Secretary have seen the

:38:40. > :38:41.light. They agree with my honourable friend the Shadow Chancellor in

:38:42. > :38:44.backing the massive investment programme we have been advocating.

:38:45. > :38:47.Isn't it time that he thanked the honourable member for Hayes and

:38:48. > :38:51.Harlington for the education where he has been doing in this house?

:38:52. > :38:55.Will he confirm that the Chancellor's fiscal rule is dead and

:38:56. > :38:59.invest in the north-east, in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, all of

:39:00. > :39:02.those places that feel, with good reason, that they have been left

:39:03. > :39:06.behind and the investment is going to the wrong places, and they are

:39:07. > :39:12.ending up with few jobs on lower wages, and insecure employment to

:39:13. > :39:16.boot? If the investment was going in the wrong places, we would not see

:39:17. > :39:20.2.5 million more people in work and we would not see a fall in

:39:21. > :39:25.unemployment, and a rise in employment in every single region in

:39:26. > :39:27.our country. The only area where I think the Right Honourable Gentleman

:39:28. > :39:30.has made a massive contribution is in recent weeks he has come up with

:39:31. > :39:38.the biggest job creation scheme I'd ever seen in my life, almost

:39:39. > :39:42.everyone on the benches behind him has had an opportunity to serve on

:39:43. > :39:47.the front bench! Rather like the old job creation schemes, it has been a

:39:48. > :39:50.bit of a revolving door. They get a job, sometimes for only a few hours,

:39:51. > :39:54.and then they go back to the backbenches. But it is a job

:39:55. > :40:01.creation scheme, nonetheless, and we should thank him for that!

:40:02. > :40:10.On a day when significant questions have been levelled at the collective

:40:11. > :40:13.decision-making of politicians, military leaders and intelligence

:40:14. > :40:18.services, many of our constituents will be seeking reassurance that the

:40:19. > :40:25.lives of their loved ones were not given in vain. That the mistakes

:40:26. > :40:27.made will never happen again. Can I ask the Prime Minister, will he

:40:28. > :40:34.ensure that the lessons learned will be fully examined and acted upon, so

:40:35. > :40:39.that there can never be a repeat of the tragic mistakes made over a

:40:40. > :40:42.decade ago? Well, I am grateful to my honourable friend for his

:40:43. > :40:46.question. I can certainly give that assurance. We will have plenty of

:40:47. > :40:49.time this afternoon to discuss the Chilcot Report and Sir John Chilcot

:40:50. > :40:53.is on his feet at the moment, explaining what he has found. I

:40:54. > :40:57.think the most important thing we can do is to really learn the

:40:58. > :41:02.lessons for the future. The lessons that he lays out, quite clearly. We

:41:03. > :41:05.will want to spend a lot of time, I'm sure, talking about the

:41:06. > :41:09.decisions on going to war and the rest of it. The most important thing

:41:10. > :41:13.for all of us is to make sure we find out how to make sure government

:41:14. > :41:16.works better, legal advice is considered better, those things are

:41:17. > :41:23.the best legacy we can sit from this whole thing. Angus Robertson. Today

:41:24. > :41:36.is hugely important for Muslims at home and abroad at the end of

:41:37. > :41:42.Ramadan. I am sure we wish them all Eid Mubarak. Our thoughts today are

:41:43. > :41:46.with those who have died in Iraq, and the families of those in Iraq

:41:47. > :41:52.who have lost loved ones. The Chilcot Report confirms that in

:41:53. > :41:55.2002, Tony Blair wrote to President Bush, saying, I will be with you

:41:56. > :42:00.whatever. Does the Prime Minister understand why the families of the

:42:01. > :42:04.dead and the injured a UK service personnel, the hundreds of thousands

:42:05. > :42:09.of Iraqis, feel they were deceived about the reasons for going to war

:42:10. > :42:12.in Iraq? First of all, let me join the Right Honourable Gentleman in

:42:13. > :42:17.wishing Muslims in this country and all over the world Eid Mubarak at

:42:18. > :42:21.the end of Ramadan. In terms of the report, we will discuss it in detail

:42:22. > :42:25.later, and I don't want to pre-empt all of the things I will say in my

:42:26. > :42:29.statement. Clearly, we need to learn the lessons of the report, we need

:42:30. > :42:33.to study it carefully. It is millions of words, thousands of

:42:34. > :42:39.pages. I think we should save our remarks for when we debated in the

:42:40. > :42:44.house after the statement. The Chilcot Report catalogues the

:42:45. > :42:48.failures in planning for post-conflict Iraq and then

:42:49. > :42:54.concludes that, and I quote, the UK did not achieve its objectives. That

:42:55. > :43:01.lack of planning has also been evident in relation to Afghanistan,

:43:02. > :43:08.Libya, Syria and, most recently, with no plan whatsoever, for Brexit.

:43:09. > :43:11.When will the UK Government actually start learning from the mistakes of

:43:12. > :43:16.the past, so we are not condemned to repeat them in future? First of all,

:43:17. > :43:20.he is right that what Sir John Chilcot says about the failure to

:43:21. > :43:24.plan is very, very clear. I can read from his statement, that is

:43:25. > :43:27.something he has given. He says when the invasion began, UK policy rested

:43:28. > :43:32.on an assumption that there would be a well executed, US lead and UN

:43:33. > :43:37.authorised operation in a relatively benign environment. He told the

:43:38. > :43:44.inquiry that the difficulties have been known in advance, Mr Blair.

:43:45. > :43:49.What I would say to the Right Honourable Gentleman in terms of

:43:50. > :43:55.planning is what I put in place, following what happened in Iraq, a

:43:56. > :43:57.National Security Council, a properly staffed and national

:43:58. > :44:02.Security Secretariat, all of those things, including listening to

:44:03. > :44:06.expert advice on a National Security Council, all of those things are

:44:07. > :44:12.designed to avoid the problems that the government have in the case of

:44:13. > :44:16.Iraq. The only point I would make is that, actually, there is no set of

:44:17. > :44:21.arrangements and plans that can provide perfection in any of these

:44:22. > :44:25.cases. Military intervention, we can argue whether it is ever justified,

:44:26. > :44:28.I believe it is. Military intervention is always difficult.

:44:29. > :44:32.Planning for the aftermath, that is always difficult. I don't think in

:44:33. > :44:35.this house we should be naive in any way that there is a perfect set of

:44:36. > :44:38.plans or a perfect set of arrangements that can solve these

:44:39. > :44:43.problems in perpetuity. There aren't. Would my right honourable

:44:44. > :44:50.friend join me in congratulating Southend Council, once again under

:44:51. > :44:56.the control of the Conservative Party, for swiftly acting to sort

:44:57. > :45:01.out the mess left by the previous, hopeless administration? And would

:45:02. > :45:04.he agree with me that Southend-on-Sea, being the

:45:05. > :45:09.alternative City of Culture next year, will produce a considerable

:45:10. > :45:13.boost to the local economy? Let me pay tribute to my honourable friend

:45:14. > :45:18.for his long-standing efforts to promote Southend and all it has to

:45:19. > :45:22.offer. While Hull is the official City of Culture next year, I am sure

:45:23. > :45:25.that Southend will benefit from the tireless campaign he has run. I join

:45:26. > :45:26.him in encouraging people to go and see this excellent seaside town for

:45:27. > :45:36.themselves. Is the Prime Minister aware that two

:45:37. > :45:44.miles north of Shire Brooke, already mentioned today, is a town called

:45:45. > :45:54.Bolsover and at the same time they were seeing the notices on the bus

:45:55. > :45:59.saying ?350 million for the NHS. At that time, they decided this

:46:00. > :46:06.government, with the help of the local people, to close the hospital

:46:07. > :46:11.Bolsover. We need the beds. I'm sure he understands that. When the

:46:12. > :46:17.hospital is closed, it is gone forever. I want him here to date to

:46:18. > :46:24.use a little bit of that money, not very much, to save the Bolsover

:46:25. > :46:30.hospital, save the beds, save the jobs and the press might have a

:46:31. > :46:37.headline saying, "The Prime Minister, dodgy Dave, assists the

:46:38. > :46:47.beast to save the Bolsover hospital". What a sensation! I will

:46:48. > :46:50.look very carefully. I don't have the information about the exact

:46:51. > :46:53.situation at the Bolsover hospital. I'll look at it very carefully and

:46:54. > :46:57.write to him. What I would say is that we are putting ?90 billion

:46:58. > :47:01.extra into the NHS in this Parliament. As for what was on the

:47:02. > :47:05.side buses and all the rest of it, my argument has always been, and

:47:06. > :47:13.will always be, but it is a strong economy you required to fund the

:47:14. > :47:16.NHS. -- ?19 billion. Last week I held my first apprenticeship is fair

:47:17. > :47:20.in my constituency. Does my right honourable friend agree with me that

:47:21. > :47:23.apprenticeships are an absolutely vital part of economic develop and

:47:24. > :47:29.in our proud northern towns and cities? She is absolutely right and

:47:30. > :47:31.that's why we've set the target for 3 million apprentices in this

:47:32. > :47:35.Parliament. I think it is achievable, just as we achieved the

:47:36. > :47:39.2 million apprentices trained in the last Parliament, and I wish her well

:47:40. > :47:45.with what I hope is the first of many apprenticeship fares in her

:47:46. > :47:48.constituency. Mr Speaker, before I ask my question, can I thank the

:47:49. > :47:55.Prime Minister for the support he gave my campaign about getting an

:47:56. > :48:01.inquiry into a certain drug which is given to pregnant women, resulting

:48:02. > :48:06.in thousands of babies being born with deformities. I thank him for

:48:07. > :48:09.supporting the campaign. Our universities, the global success

:48:10. > :48:12.stories, outward looking, open for business with the world, and

:48:13. > :48:19.attracting the brightest and the best students and researchers to

:48:20. > :48:25.reduce ground-breaking research on cancer to climate change. In the

:48:26. > :48:28.last year, the... I need a single sentence question. Forgive me but

:48:29. > :48:36.there are a lot of other colleagues who want to take part. The

:48:37. > :48:39.University has received ?836 million last year. What assurances can the

:48:40. > :48:44.Prime Minister give us that in light of the fact that we are now out of

:48:45. > :48:47.the EU, that money will be saved? First of all, let me thank the

:48:48. > :48:52.honourable lady for her thanks because she has raised this case

:48:53. > :48:54.many times and I can tell the Medicines and health care Products

:48:55. > :48:58.Regulatory Agency has been gathering evidence for a review by expert

:48:59. > :49:01.working groups on medicines and they have met on three occasions so I

:49:02. > :49:05.think we're making progress. The point she makes about universities -

:49:06. > :49:10.until Britain leads the EU we get the full amount of funding under the

:49:11. > :49:13.programmes as you would expect. All contracts under that have to be

:49:14. > :49:17.fulfilled, but it will be for a future government, as it negotiates

:49:18. > :49:21.the exit from the EU, to make sure that we domestic league continue to

:49:22. > :49:27.fund our universities in a way that makes sure they continue to lead the

:49:28. > :49:30.world. As my right honourable friend will know, the potential closure of

:49:31. > :49:37.the BHS store in Torquay town centre with the loss of over 100 jobs as

:49:38. > :49:40.again raised the need for urgent regeneration of town centres. Would

:49:41. > :49:45.he outline what support will be made available by the government to

:49:46. > :49:50.ensure plans can be taken forward? It is worth making the point that it

:49:51. > :49:54.is a very sad moment for those BHS staff who have worked so long for

:49:55. > :49:58.that business. For them, it was simply a high-street brand, it was a

:49:59. > :50:00.job, it was a way of life, it was a means of preparing for their

:50:01. > :50:05.retirement and their pensions and we must do all we can to help them and

:50:06. > :50:08.find them new work and there are many vacancies in the retail sector,

:50:09. > :50:12.and we must make sure we help them to get those jobs. What we've done

:50:13. > :50:15.in terms of high street is around ?18 million has gone to towns

:50:16. > :50:19.through them of initiatives and we should keep those up because keeping

:50:20. > :50:22.our town centres vibrant is so vital that this sits alongside the biggest

:50:23. > :50:26.ever cut in interest rates in England, worth some ?6.7 billion in

:50:27. > :50:29.the next five years and I think we need to say to those on our high

:50:30. > :50:35.streets to make the most of that business rate cut. One of my

:50:36. > :50:38.constituents who I've been working with for some time has had her

:50:39. > :50:46.mobility cart removed after falling victim to a flawed assessment by

:50:47. > :50:50.Atos. Atos have admitted their error and yet my vulnerable constituent

:50:51. > :50:54.still remains housebound and without a car. Will the Prime Minister of

:50:55. > :50:57.his full assistance to rectify this cruel situation and will he look

:50:58. > :51:01.again at the regulations which allowed this situation to come

:51:02. > :51:05.about? Let me congratulate the taking of this constituency case.

:51:06. > :51:07.Many of us have done exactly the same thing with constituents who

:51:08. > :51:12.have had assessment that haven't turned out to be accurate. If she

:51:13. > :51:19.gives me the details, I'll look at the specific case and see what can

:51:20. > :51:22.be done. A report recently commissioned by transport for the

:51:23. > :51:25.North, a body created by this government, highlights the

:51:26. > :51:29.opportunity to uphold the growing divide between the north and South

:51:30. > :51:36.and creates several new jobs and billions of pounds of growth by

:51:37. > :51:40.2015. -- 2050. Does he agree that to build an elegant and prosperity we

:51:41. > :51:42.need to continue to rebalance infrastructure spending from London

:51:43. > :51:48.to the regions, particularly to the north of England? I think he is

:51:49. > :51:52.absolutely right. What that report shows is if we don't take the

:51:53. > :51:57.necessary actions, you are going to see a continued north-south divide

:51:58. > :52:01.and that's why we are committed, for instance, to seeing increased

:52:02. > :52:04.spending on transport infrastructure go up to ?61 billion of this

:52:05. > :52:08.Parliament and in my right honourable friend's area, we're

:52:09. > :52:12.spending ?380 million upgrading the A1 from Leeming to Barton, which

:52:13. > :52:19.will be a big boost for the local economy. I recently met a

:52:20. > :52:24.constituent whose husband, a British citizen, has been an Ethiopian's

:52:25. > :52:27.death row for two years and was kidnapped while travelling in and

:52:28. > :52:31.illegally rendered Ethiopian. You are sentenced to death six years ago

:52:32. > :52:36.as a trial he was neither present that nor able to present any defence

:52:37. > :52:43.in direct contravention of international law. Given it has been

:52:44. > :52:50.accessed two legal wrappers and Titian, and has not spoken to his

:52:51. > :52:57.family, there are reports he's suicidal. In your last few weeks in

:52:58. > :52:59.office, will you make the case for him to be allowed him to be

:53:00. > :53:04.re-elected with his wife and children? We are taking a very close

:53:05. > :53:09.interest in this case. The Foreign Secretary was an Ethiopian recently,

:53:10. > :53:13.our consul has been able to meet with the man in question on a number

:53:14. > :53:18.of occasions and we are working with him and the Ethiopian woman to try

:53:19. > :53:21.to get this resolved. One of the reports that won't get so much

:53:22. > :53:26.attention is the CQC report into North Middlesex Hospital, which

:53:27. > :53:29.confirms that emergency care is inadequate. Why has it taken so many

:53:30. > :53:33.years, and why does it need the regulators to know what many of my

:53:34. > :53:37.constituents will know, that there has been another quick effort to

:53:38. > :53:40.long, too few doctors, to view consultants? And the Primus assure

:53:41. > :53:43.me that we now have in place the right plans on the right number of

:53:44. > :53:48.doctors and consultants to ensure my constituents get the care they

:53:49. > :53:54.deserve? I think he raises an important point, which is that I do

:53:55. > :53:57.think the CQC is now acting effectively at getting into

:53:58. > :54:01.hospitals, finding bad practice, reported on its 50. In some cases

:54:02. > :54:05.that bad practice has always been there but we haven't been as

:54:06. > :54:08.effective in some cases as we should be at shining eyed and. What we have

:54:09. > :54:11.seen in North Middlesex is one of the busiest emergency department of

:54:12. > :54:15.the country, the practice was an acceptable. We've now got a new

:54:16. > :54:20.clinical director of the trust, additional two doctors in A and we

:54:21. > :54:23.have been the ones that have set up the role of the Chief Inspector of

:54:24. > :54:30.hospitals to have a zero tolerance approach to practice like this and

:54:31. > :54:33.make sure things are but right. The Secretary of State for Business,

:54:34. > :54:36.Innovation and Skills has stated he wants the UK to borrow tens of

:54:37. > :54:41.billions of pounds to create a green Britain fund worth up to 100

:54:42. > :54:45.billion. Can I ask the PM whether this is a formal plan or whether

:54:46. > :54:50.this is merely an attempt to come up with a plan amid a vacuum of

:54:51. > :54:54.government? We are spending billions of pounds on the British economy and

:54:55. > :54:58.an investment and that has clear consequences under the Barnett

:54:59. > :55:01.formula for Scotland but clearly my colleagues during a leadership

:55:02. > :55:07.election, and at least the side of the House we're actually having a

:55:08. > :55:13.leadership election, rather than the never-ending... I thought you wanted

:55:14. > :55:18.one. You don't want one? Hands up who wants a leadership election! Oh,

:55:19. > :55:23.they don't want a leadership election! I'm so confused. One

:55:24. > :55:27.minute it is like the Eagle is going to sweep and the next minute it is

:55:28. > :55:31.Eddie the camera crew eagle at the top of the ski jump, not knowing

:55:32. > :55:37.whether to go or not. Anyway, in case you hadn't noticed, we're

:55:38. > :55:41.having a leadership election. Right from the start this United Kingdom

:55:42. > :55:43.has been an outward looking, international trading nation. I'm

:55:44. > :55:48.very glad to see the Trade Minister... The honourable gentleman

:55:49. > :55:54.the Member for Worcester is entitled to be heard and his constituents are

:55:55. > :55:57.entitled to be represented. And glad to see the Trade Minister out in

:55:58. > :56:00.Hong Kong today talking up the prospects for investment in the

:56:01. > :56:03.British economy but what steps can the Prime Minister take to bolster

:56:04. > :56:08.the resources available to UKTI and the Foreign Office to make sure we

:56:09. > :56:12.attract as much trade and investment from the wider world is possible? P

:56:13. > :56:18.Maytin important point and a very clear instruction has gone out to

:56:19. > :56:21.all our embassies around the world, to UKTI, that we should be doing all

:56:22. > :56:25.we can to engage as hard as we can with other parts of the world start

:56:26. > :56:28.to think about those trade deals, those investment deals and the

:56:29. > :56:32.inward investment we want to see in the UK. Business is very clear to us

:56:33. > :56:35.as well, whether they agree or disagree with the decision the

:56:36. > :56:42.country is made, they know we've got to go on and make the most of the

:56:43. > :56:47.opportunities we have. With the real prospect of a recession on the

:56:48. > :56:52.horizon, the offer from the Chancellor is cutting corporation

:56:53. > :56:56.tax, yet companies worry whether they will make a profit in the UK,

:56:57. > :56:59.not how much tax they are going to pay on it, so can the Prime Minister

:57:00. > :57:03.tell us what immediate action his government would take to protect

:57:04. > :57:09.people's jobs and livelihoods right now? Immediate action has been

:57:10. > :57:14.taken, not least the Bank of England decision to encourage bank lending

:57:15. > :57:17.by changing the reserve asset ratios that they insist on and I think

:57:18. > :57:21.that's very important because that's a short-term measure that can have

:57:22. > :57:24.some early effect. Clearly what the Chancellor was talking about is now

:57:25. > :57:28.we are in this new situation, we need to make sure that we configure

:57:29. > :57:31.all our policies to take advantage of the situation that we're going to

:57:32. > :57:36.be in and that's going to mean changes to taxes, changes to the way

:57:37. > :57:39.UKTI works, there's going to be a change in focus for the Foreign

:57:40. > :57:42.Office and the business department. All these things we can make a start

:57:43. > :57:48.on irrespective of the fact that she and I were on the same side of the

:57:49. > :57:51.referendum campaign. Further to my honourable friend from Worcester's

:57:52. > :57:55.question about UKTI, may I remind the Prime Minister that next Monday

:57:56. > :57:59.the greatest airshow in the world takes place at Farnborough in my

:58:00. > :58:04.constituency, to which all honourable and right honourable

:58:05. > :58:10.members are expected to attend! And may I remind my honourable friend

:58:11. > :58:13.that last time, two years ago, deals worth $201 billion were signed at

:58:14. > :58:17.the Farnborough airshow and may I prevail upon my right honourable

:58:18. > :58:20.friend, who may have some time on his hands, to come and open the show

:58:21. > :58:25.on Monday and encourage all other ministers to attend? I think I'm one

:58:26. > :58:27.of the first prime ministers in a while to attend the Farnborough

:58:28. > :58:32.airshow and I'm very happy to announce that I will be going back

:58:33. > :58:35.there this year because I think it's very important. We have the second

:58:36. > :58:39.largest aerospace industry in the world after the United States, and

:58:40. > :58:43.it is a brilliant moment to showcase that industry to the rest of the

:58:44. > :58:46.world and to clinch some important export deals, both in the military

:58:47. > :58:50.and in the civilian space and I will always do everything I can, whether

:58:51. > :58:57.in this job or in future, to help support British industry in that

:58:58. > :58:59.way. The UN committee on economic social and cultural rights have

:59:00. > :59:02.recently joined the UN committee on the rights of a child in expressing

:59:03. > :59:06.serious concerns about this Tory government's brutal welfare cuts.

:59:07. > :59:10.How much more international condemnation would it take for this

:59:11. > :59:16.Prime Minister to scrap his aggressive to child policy and his

:59:17. > :59:21.rate" we've seen under this government many more people in work,

:59:22. > :59:24.many more households... Many fewer households where no one works and

:59:25. > :59:30.many fewer households where there are children when one works. All of

:59:31. > :59:34.this has been a huge success but she and her party now have the

:59:35. > :59:38.opportunity, now we've made some huge devolution proposals, including

:59:39. > :59:42.in the area of welfare, if you don't feel that what we're doing on a UK

:59:43. > :59:45.bases... I don't know why you're all shouting. You're getting these

:59:46. > :59:52.powers. Instead of whingeing endlessly, start to use them! Sir

:59:53. > :59:57.John Chilcot finds that the only people who come out of the 2003

:59:58. > :00:02.invasion of Iraq well our servicemen and civilians. Will the Prime

:00:03. > :00:07.Minister look at how he can make sure that the precedent he set last

:00:08. > :00:12.autumn for transparency and scrutiny ahead of military action becomes the

:00:13. > :00:16.norm for his successor? I think we have now got a set of arrangements

:00:17. > :00:21.and also a set of conventions that put the country in a stronger

:00:22. > :00:27.position. I think it is now a clear convention that we have a vote in

:00:28. > :00:31.this House, which we did on Iran, before military action, but it is

:00:32. > :00:33.also important that we have a properly constituted National

:00:34. > :00:36.Security Council, proper receipt of legal advice, a summary of that

:00:37. > :00:41.legal advice provided to the House of Commons, as we did both in the

:00:42. > :00:44.case of Libya and Iraq, and I think these things are growing up to be a

:00:45. > :00:48.set of conventions that will work for our country, but let me repeat

:00:49. > :00:52.again, even the best rules and conventions of the world doesn't

:00:53. > :00:55.mean that you always going to be confronted by easy decisions or ones

:00:56. > :01:02.that don't have very difficult consequences. The Prime Minister

:01:03. > :01:07.will no doubt be aware of my constituent Pauline Cafferkey, a

:01:08. > :01:15.nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone in 2014, and was there as part

:01:16. > :01:20.of the DFID response to the outbreak. She and around 200 the NHS

:01:21. > :01:27.volunteers have not received an equivalent bonus of ?4000 that was

:01:28. > :01:34.awarded to 250 Public Health England staff. Wilbur Prime Minister agreed

:01:35. > :01:40.to meet with me to discuss how DFID can rectify this situation. -- will

:01:41. > :01:43.the Prime Minister agree. Roll Pauline Cafferkey is one of the

:01:44. > :01:46.bravest people I've ever met and it was a great privilege to have come

:01:47. > :01:50.to Number Ten Downing St and I'm proud of the fact that she and many

:01:51. > :01:53.others, I believe, have received the medal for in Sierra Leone. It is

:01:54. > :01:58.something Britain should be incredibly proud of. We partnered

:01:59. > :02:01.with that country to deal with Ebola and it is now free of Ebola to talk

:02:02. > :02:05.I will look specifically into the issue of the bonus. I wasn't aware

:02:06. > :02:14.of that and I will get back to her about it.

:02:15. > :02:20.That is very much a warm up act today, because they are moving onto

:02:21. > :02:24.statements on the Chilcot Report, published this morning. The Prime

:02:25. > :02:27.Minister will make the opening remarks, followed by the Leader of

:02:28. > :02:31.the Opposition. There will be particular interest in what Jeremy

:02:32. > :02:37.Corbyn has to say. Jeremy Corbyn was strongly opposed to the action in

:02:38. > :02:40.Iraq. He will therefore speak as a labour leader who was not

:02:41. > :02:44.complicated in these decisions. We are going to keep across both of

:02:45. > :02:49.these speeches and we will bring you highlights of them, if we can,

:02:50. > :02:55.before one o'clock. Meanwhile, we return to Chilcot. Laura, are we any

:02:56. > :02:59.clearer what the political fallout will be? I think it will become

:03:00. > :03:03.clear today, in the coming weeks and months. As we were saying before,

:03:04. > :03:08.the strange thing about this is that the people that are criticising it

:03:09. > :03:12.are not really around any more. -- criticised in it. Jeremy Corbyn's

:03:13. > :03:15.response is likely to be strident. There is an expectation he might

:03:16. > :03:19.even call for Tony Blair to face legal action in his role in this. It

:03:20. > :03:22.is not clear he will do this. He will not just respond in the

:03:23. > :03:26.Commons, he will also make a big speech later on this afternoon. It

:03:27. > :03:30.has been a key part of his principal for many years. He was one of the

:03:31. > :03:33.foremost opponents of the war in Iraq. If he goes that far, it will

:03:34. > :03:38.be something that further heaps pressure on the Labour Party. Many

:03:39. > :03:41.MPs, many people like Charlie, sitting here, were very involved in

:03:42. > :03:47.the decision and supported the war in Iraq. Overall, as we were

:03:48. > :03:51.beginning to catch on, this is a document that shows that in future

:03:52. > :03:56.no government will be able to go into anything like this without

:03:57. > :04:00.feeling that there will be held to account, without feeling that their

:04:01. > :04:03.internal conversations, their private memos, all of their

:04:04. > :04:08.deliberations will, at one point in the future, be made public. There

:04:09. > :04:12.may also be consequences for our relationship with the United States.

:04:13. > :04:15.This document shows clearly that Tony Blair basically chose the

:04:16. > :04:19.United States rather than the United Nations, although he did try very

:04:20. > :04:22.hard to get the UN on board. We have had more than 20 private notes

:04:23. > :04:26.between Tony Blair and George Bush published today. Huge controversy

:04:27. > :04:30.about whether that should have happened or not. Now it has, it is a

:04:31. > :04:35.very serious precedent that has been set. Indeed, it will have lots of

:04:36. > :04:42.applications for future foreign policy. Let's go to the Central

:04:43. > :04:50.Lobby, Tony Blair's special envoy of the time, Ann Clwyd, joins us. For

:04:51. > :04:54.those that favoured the war, it is not happy reading is it? I have not

:04:55. > :04:58.had a chance to read it, unlike journalists who had it since 8:30am,

:04:59. > :05:02.we had to depend on Chilcot making his statement. I have not read it,

:05:03. > :05:06.but I know what some of the main points are. The main points were

:05:07. > :05:11.that the intelligence was unreliable, that we went to war on a

:05:12. > :05:17.wrong basis, it was premature because options have not been

:05:18. > :05:24.exhausted, and that the aftermath of the invasion was largely a disaster.

:05:25. > :05:29.That, we do know is in the Chilcot Report? We also know there were 17

:05:30. > :05:34.UN resolutions which Saddam Hussein had not complied with. He had used

:05:35. > :05:41.chemical weapons against the Kurds, and also against the Shia in the

:05:42. > :05:50.south. He had the capability and he had used them in the past. I went to

:05:51. > :05:53.Iraq in 2003, February 2003, I was with the Kurds. The Kurds were

:05:54. > :05:58.frightened that chemical weapons were going to be used again against

:05:59. > :06:03.them. They were already fleeing the city 's of northern Iraq. So, there

:06:04. > :06:08.was very real fear amongst them that Saddam would use those again. I was

:06:09. > :06:13.taken to the border with Iraq, the Kurdish Iraq border, and I was shown

:06:14. > :06:19.rocket placements in the hills where the Kurds told me they were going to

:06:20. > :06:22.be used against them. So they have their intelligence as well. Of

:06:23. > :06:28.course, but the Kurds were anxious for their own reasons, for us to

:06:29. > :06:31.intervene. That's what they wanted us to do. In the end, they couldn't

:06:32. > :06:34.have been in danger, it turned out he didn't have any chemical weapons

:06:35. > :06:40.to use against them any more. We went on to war on the basis that he

:06:41. > :06:51.did? Andrew, not only had he used weapons against the Kurds, he killed

:06:52. > :06:55.about 500,000 Shia in the south, mass graves, 10,000 people were

:06:56. > :06:59.buried there. I have been to the marshes, and he tried to eliminate

:07:00. > :07:10.the Arabs there. How many have been killed since we invaded? Well, we

:07:11. > :07:14.don't know. Hundreds of thousands, of course? But Saddam killed about a

:07:15. > :07:21.million of his own people. Do you think there is nothing in this

:07:22. > :07:27.report, from what you know so far, that gives you cause to reconsider

:07:28. > :07:35.your position at the time? Of course, but not the position at the

:07:36. > :07:39.time. On the basis of what we were told, Tony Blair was justified in

:07:40. > :07:44.taking the action he did. He thought he was doing the best thing for this

:07:45. > :07:54.country and also helping the Iraqis. The aftermath, the lack of planning,

:07:55. > :07:59.that is a serious criticism. I saw it myself, I went to Iraq about 23

:08:00. > :08:03.times. Indeed, I spoke to you about it afterwards. Can I ask you this

:08:04. > :08:07.about the aftermath and lack of planning, given that we and the

:08:08. > :08:11.Americans invaded, not because we thought Saddam was about to attack

:08:12. > :08:16.us, that was not on the cards, but because we thought he might be a

:08:17. > :08:21.danger and we wanted to make a better society in Iraq, why was

:08:22. > :08:26.there no planning for the aftermath? Why did we not have a plan to

:08:27. > :08:30.rebuild that society? After all, we have massive plans to rebuild

:08:31. > :08:34.Germany after the Second World War. It started in 1942, less than a mile

:08:35. > :08:40.from where I am. The Americans have massive plans to rebuild Japan after

:08:41. > :08:45.1945. Given the nature of our intervention, why did we not have

:08:46. > :08:53.plans to rebuild Iraq? Well, there were some plans. , Some? There were

:08:54. > :08:56.not sufficient. Some were to help civil society get back on its feet.

:08:57. > :09:01.I was involved in some of that planning. Also, we trained people in

:09:02. > :09:08.forensics, to help uncover the mass graves. We helped the legal system.

:09:09. > :09:13.They had to try some of the people involved in war crimes, crimes

:09:14. > :09:18.against humanity and genocide, we have plans for that. We trained

:09:19. > :09:24.people. It was wholly inadequate, wasn't it? I agree with you. We were

:09:25. > :09:29.the junior partner in the whole thing. The Americans also have to be

:09:30. > :09:40.criticised. Of course. But why did Mr Blair... We can find no evidence

:09:41. > :09:45.that Mr Blair, having voluntarily joined in this event, had made any

:09:46. > :09:49.attempt at all to ensure the Americans have a proper plan, that

:09:50. > :09:53.we would be part of, to rebuild Iraq after the invasion. Well, I think

:09:54. > :10:00.there was planning. You know, there was quite detailed planning, but not

:10:01. > :10:03.enough, certainly, with hindsight, clearly not enough. It is not fair

:10:04. > :10:10.to say there was no planning, there was, and we attempted to rebuild

:10:11. > :10:17.Iraq. We retrained civil society, for example. I saw it first hand. I

:10:18. > :10:22.think we can both agree it was not a huge success and still hasn't been.

:10:23. > :10:25.Ann Clwyd, we will leave it there. What did happen is that the State

:10:26. > :10:35.Department had substantial plans. There was even an area in Washington

:10:36. > :10:40.called Iraq Shack. President Bush took responsibility out of the state

:10:41. > :10:42.department's hands and go to the Pentagon, who never had

:10:43. > :10:47.responsibility for building a society after a war, it was an

:10:48. > :10:52.unprecedented change because he didn't trust the State Department,

:10:53. > :10:57.but he trusted Donald Rumsfeld on the Pentagon. A huge error? He

:10:58. > :11:01.installed his own people. Paul Bremer went in as governor of that

:11:02. > :11:07.province. Despite Ann Clwyd trying to defend the planning efforts that

:11:08. > :11:10.went in before, it is clear when you read the report, quite astonishing,

:11:11. > :11:16.there is evidence in there that suggests that the Cabinet did not

:11:17. > :11:20.discuss military options, on the 17th of March, less than a week

:11:21. > :11:27.before the invasion, there have not been a full discussion of military

:11:28. > :11:31.options. Chilcot lists 11 specific, significant points when decisions

:11:32. > :11:35.were taken that were not, and in his view should have been taken and

:11:36. > :11:38.discussed properly other Cabinet, they were taken elsewhere and there

:11:39. > :11:45.were lots of private side conversations. Sometimes it was just

:11:46. > :11:49.between Tony Blair and Jack Straw, sometimes between Tony Blair and

:11:50. > :11:52.George Bush. One of the themes is that Cabinet ministers at the time

:11:53. > :11:57.were not included in the decision-making. Is that right? I

:11:58. > :12:03.was not in the Cabinet at the time. I have not read the report, Laura

:12:04. > :12:07.has read the executive summary, the idea that during this period there

:12:08. > :12:12.wasn't a great decision that had to be taken for the nation, and in

:12:13. > :12:18.particular for the Government, is, I think, not an accurate impression.

:12:19. > :12:25.Sure that have involved more people? That's the point. The Cabinet

:12:26. > :12:29.discussed regularly. Laura will correct me if I am wrong, Sir John

:12:30. > :12:40.Chilcot's criticism is that there is no formal minuted report beforehand.

:12:41. > :12:51.This idea that it was a secret drumbeat to war is not accurate. But

:12:52. > :12:57.it echoes Butler's report on talking about a sofa cabinet? Basically,

:12:58. > :13:00.they are saying we did not know what he was up to. There was huge public

:13:01. > :13:05.concern about what we were doing. The point Chilcot makes is that in

:13:06. > :13:09.no way were any of the processes that we might expect from

:13:10. > :13:12.politicians on a decision with this level of gravity, in no way where

:13:13. > :13:17.they followed. You are right, it wasn't a secret that these issues

:13:18. > :13:21.were being considered. Let me ask you a wider foreign policy point.

:13:22. > :13:30.Can I just pick you up on that? There was a secret? That is how it

:13:31. > :13:35.was done? Not only was it secret, there was deliberate deceit, I don't

:13:36. > :13:39.think that Chilcot says that. People think there was a secret agreement

:13:40. > :13:43.between Mr Bush and Mr Blair to proceed. Let me come to Julian

:13:44. > :13:49.Lewis. When I was last in Washington, a White House aide said

:13:50. > :13:54.to me wintergreen din Iraq and occupied Iraq, disaster. We

:13:55. > :13:58.intervened in Libya, but we did not occupy Libya, disaster. We have

:13:59. > :14:03.neither intervened or occupied Syria, disaster. What is the foreign

:14:04. > :14:10.policy of location? The answer to all of this is sometimes there are

:14:11. > :14:14.no good outcomes to be had. Where your parallel with planning after

:14:15. > :14:19.the defeat of Germany and Japan breaks down, with respect, is that

:14:20. > :14:25.Germany and Japan had to undergo the process of unconditional surrender.

:14:26. > :14:29.While I indicated earlier in the conversation, what happens in these

:14:30. > :14:42.countries is that if you remove the dictatorship, then the thousand year

:14:43. > :14:51.old hatreds between the Sunni kiss, Shias, it comes flooding out front

:14:52. > :15:00.and centre. With intervening or not intervening, leaving dictators in

:15:01. > :15:07.place, they ruled brutally, if you remove them, you get civil war, at a

:15:08. > :15:10.parallel, imagine this country 700 or 800 years ago, were the sort of

:15:11. > :15:13.people running the country would not hesitate to burn heretics at the

:15:14. > :15:17.stake because they had a different interpretation of what Almighty God

:15:18. > :15:22.was telling them should happen in this country. If you want to get

:15:23. > :15:25.into that mindset and say what would happen, if you tried to impose a

:15:26. > :15:30.democratic model, you get an idea of what happens in these countries when

:15:31. > :15:36.you do the same thing. But did we know that in 2003? I don't know, is

:15:37. > :15:43.the answer. I was in opposition and I would have thought we did. Wait a

:15:44. > :15:50.minute, we knew because we created Iraq. We put Shia and Sunni

:15:51. > :15:55.together. And Kurds! We created this artificial state.

:15:56. > :15:59.And we're talking about events which happened decades earlier and the

:16:00. > :16:03.institutional memory of the Foreign Office should be able to cope with

:16:04. > :16:09.that and, what's more, they did because in the first Gulf War, that

:16:10. > :16:13.was probably the reason that they decided, having thrown out Saddam

:16:14. > :16:21.Hussein from Kuwait, and no one has once mentioned that all this really

:16:22. > :16:24.started with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Of it have been further,

:16:25. > :16:35.there would have been no question of trying to depose him later. Briefly,

:16:36. > :16:40.one of the most important thing is that we haven't mentioned that also

:16:41. > :16:43.comes across in the report, is how 9/11 changed this, changed the

:16:44. > :16:46.political culture in the US, changed the political culture here and one

:16:47. > :16:50.of the most interesting documents but has come out this morning is a

:16:51. > :16:56.document that was sent by Tony Blair to George Bush on the war against

:16:57. > :16:59.terror, phase two, in which they discussed Afghanistan and he lays

:17:00. > :17:04.out what he calls an argument for Iraq in the longer term. I won't go

:17:05. > :17:09.into the detail of it now but all of those documents are now out in

:17:10. > :17:13.public for all of us to see, but 9/11 is what changed the dynamic of

:17:14. > :17:17.so much of this and you can't forget that in terms of the climate that it

:17:18. > :17:23.had created. Is intervention always wrong? I was generally in favour of

:17:24. > :17:28.interventions if you thought you could get a better outcome but what

:17:29. > :17:33.this has shown us is that you have to work on the basis that if the

:17:34. > :17:37.outcome that follows is worse than the situation you start with, then

:17:38. > :17:44.you shouldn't interfere with it. And we were fooled over Libya. Did you

:17:45. > :17:48.support Libya? I voted very reluctantly for a no-fly zone to

:17:49. > :17:53.protect the citizens of Benghazi. We were misled over that. The moment we

:17:54. > :17:57.voted for it they had an all-out aerial offensive to destroy Gadhafi.

:17:58. > :18:01.I would never have voted for that. How did you fall for a no-fly zone

:18:02. > :18:06.to protect Benghazi one Gadhafi had said he was going to go door-to-door

:18:07. > :18:10.on the ground? Why would a no-fly zone protect the people of Benghazi?

:18:11. > :18:17.Because the idea would have been that the aerial forces would have

:18:18. > :18:24.been used to interfere with any attack... So it's not a no-fly zone.

:18:25. > :18:29.All I can say is, this is the basis on which we were told in parliament

:18:30. > :18:33.we were doing something to protect the citizens of Benghazi. We were

:18:34. > :18:38.not told that it was an attempt to bring down Gadhafi. If we had been,

:18:39. > :18:44.I would have voted against it and that's why I did vote against the

:18:45. > :18:49.proposal to do the same in Syria. David Cameron is still speaking. Not

:18:50. > :18:52.saying anything out of the ordinary yet but he is still going on and

:18:53. > :18:57.there will hear from Mr Cobb and. Laura, a final thought? This report

:18:58. > :18:59.is clear, polite but damning in its conclusions. The intelligence

:19:00. > :19:03.failed, the government failed, the military failed, the planning failed

:19:04. > :19:06.and I think therefore it will be very hard for people to put the Iraq

:19:07. > :19:10.war down to anything but one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes in

:19:11. > :19:13.recent decades. Tony Blair will be speaking about it this afternoon and

:19:14. > :19:17.there are very, very serious questions for him to answer. It's a

:19:18. > :19:19.busy day for you. Thanks for being with us.

:19:20. > :19:23.We are joined by the Labour MP and now Shadow Leader of the House

:19:24. > :19:25.of Commons Paul Flynn, who voted against military

:19:26. > :19:32.Many people have long held the view that Tony Blair went to war on false

:19:33. > :19:37.premise because there no weapons of mass destruction but there's nothing

:19:38. > :19:41.in the Chilcot Report so far, and we haven't seen all of it, that says

:19:42. > :19:45.that that decision was made with any deliberate deceit or intention. To

:19:46. > :19:52.you accept that? They had evidence that it was in this document, which

:19:53. > :19:57.is a 15 page report about Mr Husain cabal which they used... Blair used

:19:58. > :20:01.it to say, this is evidence that they have weapons of mass to

:20:02. > :20:04.structure, but the latter part of the same document, which he didn't

:20:05. > :20:10.quote, said they'd already got rid of them eight years earlier. So

:20:11. > :20:16.there was definite deception by Tony Blair and the evidence was as it

:20:17. > :20:18.says, it was slight and sporadic but I'm afraid this is an utter

:20:19. > :20:23.condemnation of that terrible decision to go to war, which

:20:24. > :20:29.resulted in the immediate deaths, the injuries to our troops, the

:20:30. > :20:34.150,000 Iraqis at least, and the chaos that continues in Iraq. What

:20:35. > :20:38.do you think, if anything, action should be taken against Tony Blair?

:20:39. > :20:42.I think today there should be serious consideration to him being

:20:43. > :20:48.prosecuted for this but I think this remains to be seen. Where would he

:20:49. > :20:51.be prosecuted? That remains to be seen. Most of us have just seen the

:20:52. > :20:56.summary of the report. The important issue is not one individual.

:20:57. > :21:01.Parliament is on trial. It wasn't just Tony Blair, it was most of the

:21:02. > :21:08.Labour backbenchers, it was all of the Tory backbenchers except half a

:21:09. > :21:12.dozen, and it's those 139 Labour people at the time, MPs, who voted

:21:13. > :21:16.against, a three line whip on this, and the minor parties who opposed

:21:17. > :21:20.this, and the 1 million people that walk the streets. It wasn't clear

:21:21. > :21:24.there should be a case for war to talk there was more opposition to it

:21:25. > :21:29.in 2003 than almost any war we've ever had. This was a terrible

:21:30. > :21:32.decision. I'm going to put that to Charlie Falconer in just a minute

:21:33. > :21:35.but when you say you think there was a case for prosecution, the

:21:36. > :21:40.International Criminal Court will not put Tony Blair on trial for war

:21:41. > :21:43.crimes because decisions on launching a conflict are outside its

:21:44. > :21:48.dream it. The tribunal will only look at things on atrocities that

:21:49. > :21:50.took place on the battlefield. So I ask again, prosecution isn't really

:21:51. > :21:56.something that's going to happen, is it? Can we say, this is not about

:21:57. > :22:00.one man, this is about the system. You said you thought there should be

:22:01. > :22:03.prosecution. But that is a minor matter. The important thing is we

:22:04. > :22:09.never do this again. You've got a gung ho group in the Parliament,

:22:10. > :22:13.called the Give War Chance Party, who want to shoot first and think

:22:14. > :22:17.later. They are still at it in this House. It wasn't just Tony Blair, it

:22:18. > :22:22.was three select committees that were gung ho for war, it was the

:22:23. > :22:29.Leader of the Opposition. Let me put that our guests. Are you in the Give

:22:30. > :22:32.War A Chance Party? Absolutely not, and I think the decision to use

:22:33. > :22:37.force in any circumstances has to be one made only after the most

:22:38. > :22:40.profound... The Chilcot Inquiry makes it clear that those weren't

:22:41. > :22:45.exhaustive, that actually it wasn't in the end of the last resort. Like

:22:46. > :22:50.Paul, I haven't read the report yet. I'm not disputing that it says that

:22:51. > :22:53.but what... That was put to me earlier in the programme and my

:22:54. > :22:58.response that was that a decision had to be made in March 2003 with

:22:59. > :23:05.the troops down there as to what was the way to enforce the regime. But

:23:06. > :23:09.what about this gung ho way but Paul Flynn is describing people like you

:23:10. > :23:14.on select committees who actually just want, in a way, to look at war

:23:15. > :23:17.first? That's as interesting generalisation. The truth is there

:23:18. > :23:20.are people like me who strongly supported and veg and sometimes and

:23:21. > :23:23.strongly opposed it on other occasions. You must judge each in

:23:24. > :23:28.its own context and it's worth remembering... I went to the Hutton

:23:29. > :23:34.in Greek, which looks at the death of Dr David Kelly, and there was a

:23:35. > :23:38.quote there from doctor Kelly himself, which very briefly said,

:23:39. > :23:41."It is very easy to hide weapons of mass to structure and, you silly did

:23:42. > :23:45.a whole of the desert, put them inside, cover them with a tarpaulin,

:23:46. > :23:48.and they would be almost impossible to discover". It is very easy now to

:23:49. > :23:52.say that after the invasion there was nothing there. We couldn't know

:23:53. > :23:57.it at the time. Paul Flynn, thank you very much for joining us.

:23:58. > :24:00.The Prime Minister has been giving his response to the Chilcot Report.

:24:01. > :24:06.Is also been talking about when intervention is justified and when

:24:07. > :24:11.it is not and circumstances can very. Let's hear what he had to say.

:24:12. > :24:14.There will be further lessons to learn from studying this report and

:24:15. > :24:18.I commit today David Batty is exactly what we will do but in

:24:19. > :24:24.reflecting on this report and my own experience, there are also some

:24:25. > :24:28.lessons here that I do not think we should draw. First, it would be

:24:29. > :24:30.wrong to conclude that we shouldn't stand with our American allies when

:24:31. > :24:36.our common security interests are threatened. We must never be afraid

:24:37. > :24:38.to speak frankly and honesty as best friends always should, and where we

:24:39. > :24:41.commit our trips together there must be a structure through which our

:24:42. > :24:45.views can be proper league conveyed and differences worked through. But

:24:46. > :24:49.it remains the case that Britain and America share the same fundamental

:24:50. > :24:52.values and Britain has no greater friend or ally in the world than

:24:53. > :24:58.America and our partnership remains as important that our security and

:24:59. > :25:02.prosperity as it has ever been. Second, I think it would be wrong to

:25:03. > :25:05.conclude that we cannot rely on the judgments of our brilliant and

:25:06. > :25:10.hard-working intelligence agencies. We know the debt we owe them in

:25:11. > :25:15.helping to keep us safe of the year. Since November 2014, they've enabled

:25:16. > :25:19.us to foil seven different planned terrorist attacks on the streets of

:25:20. > :25:23.the UK. What this report shows is there needs to be a proper

:25:24. > :25:27.separation between the assessing intelligence and the policy-making

:25:28. > :25:30.that flows from it and as a result of the reforms of the Butler report,

:25:31. > :25:34.that is what we now have in place. That is the Prime Minister

:25:35. > :25:38.responding. Jeremy Corbyn is now responding and we are going to give

:25:39. > :25:45.you a clip of that in a moment. He has said that the war has long been

:25:46. > :25:51.regarded as illegal but he is not expected, we understand, to call for

:25:52. > :25:55.the prosecution of Mr Blair. There is and, perhaps, enough ammunition

:25:56. > :25:58.to do that. From what Laura was saying, it is not making a

:25:59. > :26:03.conclusion one way or the other as to whether it is illegal, as I

:26:04. > :26:05.understand what is Laura is saying. It is saying the process was not

:26:06. > :26:10.right but they are not saying that the conclusion that it was a legal

:26:11. > :26:14.war is wrong. I understand they are expressing no view one way or the

:26:15. > :26:19.other in relation to that. It is not a legal tribunal, it is looking at

:26:20. > :26:22.the facts and the processes. The Suez, as we look back, was a

:26:23. > :26:28.watershed in British foreign policy and Britain's position in the world,

:26:29. > :26:31.indeed, because many concluded that we couldn't act on our own any more

:26:32. > :26:36.without American support. Of course, the Falklands sort of disproves that

:26:37. > :26:41.in a way, but is Iraq a watershed? Because we had Libya since and there

:26:42. > :26:47.was... Our planes are active in the skies over Iraq and Syria. How would

:26:48. > :26:50.you place it now? I think it is a watershed in terms of our

:26:51. > :26:57.understanding of the limitations of what any intervention can do, in a

:26:58. > :27:04.society which is still dominated by religious divides extending back for

:27:05. > :27:09.hundreds and hundreds of years, and what really needs to worry us is

:27:10. > :27:14.that these societies have a doctrine, extreme religious variance

:27:15. > :27:19.of Islam, that has a worldwide appeal a bit like the communist or

:27:20. > :27:23.international Marxist doctrines used to have and that's where we have to

:27:24. > :27:27.constantly understand that if we leave things to develop, it can make

:27:28. > :27:30.the situation worse but if we intervene, it can make the situation

:27:31. > :27:35.worse as well. There are no easy answers and the best general

:27:36. > :27:40.approach is one of containment. Home if you do, hung if you don't. This

:27:41. > :27:44.illustrates both the difficulty and Laura's point, this will be the most

:27:45. > :27:47.examined decision on foreign policy which will affect foreign policy

:27:48. > :27:50.decisions of the future because of the lessons we learn and because

:27:51. > :27:55.rightly we now know there will be an absolute spotlight, rightly so, in

:27:56. > :27:58.the future did not We've only got a few minutes but let us hear what

:27:59. > :28:05.Jeremy Corbyn has had to say before we go. The decision to invade and

:28:06. > :28:08.occupy Iraq in March 2003 was the most significant foreign policy

:28:09. > :28:14.decisions taken by a British Government in modern times. It

:28:15. > :28:18.divided this House and set the government of the day against a

:28:19. > :28:23.majority of the British people, as well as against the weight of global

:28:24. > :28:28.opinion. The war was not in anyway, as Sir John Chilcot says, a last

:28:29. > :28:32.resort. Frankly, it was an act of military aggression launched on a

:28:33. > :28:37.false pretext, as the inquiry act sets, and has long been regarded as

:28:38. > :28:43.illegal by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion. It

:28:44. > :28:47.led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the

:28:48. > :28:52.displacement of millions of refugees. It devastated Iraq's

:28:53. > :28:58.infrastructure and society. Mr Corbyn. Much more on the one o'clock

:28:59. > :29:02.news coming up now on BBC One. Much more, of course, on the BBC News

:29:03. > :29:06.Channel throughout the day, and in all our major newscasts this evening

:29:07. > :29:08.and through into tomorrow. Thanks for joining us. We're finished for

:29:09. > :29:12.the day. Bye-bye.